KU names Judith Rosenbaum-Andre new journalism school dean

The University of Kansas picked Judith Rosenbaum-Andre to lead the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications, placing a new dean in charge of one of Lawrence’s most visible talent pipelines for Kansas media. She will start July 19 and succeed interim dean Scott Reinardy, who has led the school since August and will return to the faculty.

The appointment matters well beyond Stauffer-Flint Hall. For Douglas County, the journalism school is more than an academic unit, it is where future reporters, editors and media managers are trained before moving into internships and newsroom jobs across Kansas and beyond. WittKieffer said the school traces its first journalism class to 1891 and now counts more than 14,500 graduates in the United States and dozens of countries.

Rosenbaum-Andre comes to Lawrence from the University of Maine, where she serves as associate dean for faculty affairs and administration in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She also chairs the Department of Communication and Journalism and is a professor of media studies. KU said her work has focused on faculty success, mentoring partnerships, cross-disciplinary research and teaching, curricular revision, internship oversight and assessment strategies aimed at improving student success.

Her administrative background also includes leadership posts at Albany State University in Georgia, where she served as president of the Faculty Senate and chair of the Institutional Review Board. She also worked as a research facilitator on a $4.3 million project funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, experience that gives her a record of managing both academic governance and externally funded research.

The dean search followed Ann Brill’s decision in 2025 to step down and return to teaching at the school. KU said the search committee included faculty, staff, students and alumni and was co-led by Stephen Mazza, dean of the KU School of Law, and Mary Banwart, associate vice provost of Faculty Affairs.

Rosenbaum-Andre now takes over a school that the university says must navigate a rapidly changing higher-education and media landscape while also strengthening research, scholarship, creative activity, fundraising and accreditation stewardship. That puts immediate pressure on the next dean to clarify curriculum priorities, deepen internship ties in Lawrence and beyond, and decide how KU will prepare students for a newsroom environment shaped by new digital tools and artificial intelligence. At a school that has sent graduates into newsrooms for more than a century, those choices will shape the next generation of Kansas reporters.