Arlene Notoro Morgan

Arlene Morgan

Arlene Notoro Morgan

  • Lew Klein College of Media and Communication

    • Office of the Dean

      • Assistant Dean, External Affairs

Biography

Arlene Notoro Morgan is the Klein College assistant dean for external affairs.  She joined the staff as a visiting professor in January 2014 after serving for more than 20 years on the Klein advisory board.

A 1967 graduate of the journalism program, Morgan worked as a reporter and an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer for 31 years. There she developed a reputation as an advocate for diversity issues in both hiring and content.

She retired from the paper in 2000 to join the staff of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism where she served as associate dean for prizes and programs until she retired in fall 2013.  At Columbia, Morgan oversaw the administration of the school’s many prestigious prizes and professional development workshops. As an innovator in continuing education for news professionals, Morgan directed the annual “Let’s Do It Better!” Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity, a project that resulted in The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity, a compilation textbook, DVD, and website of award-winning stories from her program.

In 2007, Morgan started the Punch Sulzberger News Media Executive Leadership Program, a challenge-based performance leadership program for news executives.  The project was sponsored through a $4 million gift from the sisters of Punch Sulzberger, the late publisher of The New York Times, in recognition of his contributions to the news industry. That project led to the creation in 2015 of the Temple-Knight-Lenfest newspaper digital transformation “Table Stakes” project at Klein that Morgan administers.  Two outgrowths of the project include a user guide, “Table Stakes: A Manual for Getting in the Game of News,” and the creation of the Better News website (Betternews.org), which the American Press Institute operates as a hub for the guide and program results.

Before joining Columbia, Morgan served as The Philadelphia Inquirer’s assistant managing editor for readership, hiring and staff development. In 1995, she was honored with the first Knight-Ridder Excellence in Diversity Award for her work to diversify the Inquirer’s staff and for her leadership in fostering diversity throughout Knight-Ridder newspapers, the former owner of the Inquirer.

Morgan was a 1996-1997 fellow of the Freedom Forum’s Media Studies Center at Columbia University to work on diversity issues for the news industry.

She is a member of a number advisory boards, including LSU’s Manship School of Communications, the Stony Brook School of Journalism, the Kaiser Health News Agency and the Rosalyn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Reporting.

A consultant on news media diversity and ethics issues, Morgan has lectured and overseen projects at schools and news organizations nationwide and internationally in Barcelona, China and New Zealand.

A resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Morgan is a Philadelphia native who is married to David J. Morgan and the mother of two adult children.