Ohio University’s new E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Director is not only an advocate for student media, but a “proud mom.”
“He was there the whole time,” Darcie Zudell, a senior studying journalism, said of the new director and journalism professor, Hans Meyer. “He made sure he was in the studio when we had our interviews and he was recording us like a proud mom in the back. It was nice spending time with him.”
Zudell is just one of the five students who recently traveled to San Diego, California, with Meyer. Zudell said she and a few students expressed their interest in the trip to Meyer after they met Chris Longo, a Bobcat alumnus who is now the chief creative officer for the magazine Den of Geek.
“(Meyer) talked a lot about expanding more experiential learning opportunities and he's already done that with taking students to San Diego,” she said. “The trip was basically a trial run. It was a pilot program. Hans launched the program and organized it, I am pretty sure, all by himself.”
Meyer succeeded Edith Dashiell, otherwise known as "Dr. D,” around Schoonover Center. Dr. D started working at OU in 1992 and was the Scripps director from 2020 to 2025. She retired in May.
In her 33 years at OU, Dr. D served in various administrative positions, frequently fashioned the color purple and exemplified a deep passion for educating.
It is safe to say her shoes were tough to fill. Luckily, an excellent and qualified candidate was right around the corner, teaching hundreds of younger journalists.
Meyer officially took the director title July 1.
“When I started here, I wanted to be the best professor that I could,” Meyer said. “I always really liked it and I really wanted to do something that I thought I could help people with. Journalism was a perfect fit.”
The University of Missouri grad joined OU’s teaching staff in 2009. As a middle schooler, Meyer said he was enthralled by the reporting scene and had his first taste of leadership working as a city editor for a newspaper after college.
Flash forward 16 years, and the Salt Lake City native is putting his passion for reporting into practice. Some of Meyer’s plans for the position include, but are not limited to, emphasizing the importance of journalism in contemporary society, offering more classes and advocating for trustworthy and factual journalism practices.
“I want to continue to mentor other faculty,” he said. “I want to make sure the faculty have a voice. The decisions that we make as a J school are arrived at through consensus and not through dictate.”
In the eyes of multiple Scripps professors, Meyer has always been a flexible leader and someone to whom they can express concerns.
“I felt that no matter what, I was able to go to him and have a conversation,” Janice Collins, associate professor and director of the Institute for International Journalism, said.
Collins said when Meyer was the associate director of undergraduate studies, the two would frequently discuss how to elevate each student's classroom experiences.
“He and I had a lot of conversations about courses, where the course was and where we wanted to go with it,” Collins said. Hans and I have a pretty close business relationship. He is a leader. Teams are only as good as the coach.”
Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023 and ranked as the number one university in the state to prepare students to become editors in 2022, Scripps continues to foster an uplifting atmosphere where young journalists can thrive.
Zudell, who was a member of the student hiring committee, said she believes Meyer will keep the school in safe hands and relish in Scripps' rich history.
“I just recognized Hans cared about student media,” she said.
One of her multiple goals for this year, she said, is uplifting student media, as she was Backdrop Magazine’s executive editor and noticed a lack of recognition from faculty.
“Publications like The Post and Backdrop … we pour so much time into these roles and everyone across the board does and though we get clips and experience, we don't necessarily get credit for it,” she said. “Hans said, ‘You guys should get credit for this. We could talk about this possibly counting as an internship credit.’”
As Meyer settles into his new role, Scripps Bobcats and faculty, both new and returning, may be in for an exciting semester.
“I hope for him to take a leadership role and really establish how important journalism is to a democracy,” Collins said. “I'm expecting him to just take the best and make it better.”
