Sept. 19, 1997 Contact Gaye Vandermyn (541) 346-3134 EUGENE--The widow of a former University of Oregon journalism dean today (Sept. 19) announced that she and her children are fully endowing a new John L. Hulteng Chair of Media Ethics and Responsibility in honor of her late husband. "We are extremely grateful to the Hulteng family for their generosity and it is fitting that a chair dedicated to media ethics and responsibility will bear his name," said UO President Dave Frohnmayer. "John Hulteng was an outstanding journalist, teacher and dean, and remains a shining example of the importance of unwavering high ethical standards." Elizabeth (B.J.) Hulteng of Spokane made the announcement at a ceremony dedicating the new John L. Hulteng Student Services Center at Allen Hall, which houses the School of Journalism and Communication programs on the UO campus. "Recent events remind us that it is, as always, timely for us to be thinking about questions of ethics and media," said journalism and communications Dean Tim Gleason. "One of the missions of the School of Journalism is the exploration of professional ethics in all fields of communications. This chair is a significant contribution to the school because first, it highlights that important central part of our mission; and second, it will enable us to incorporate the teaching of ethics into the curriculum to an even greater degree." The $150,000 new Hulteng Student Services Center is located at the garden level of the building in newly remodeled space that became available last year when the UO's printing presses moved to the Register-Guard building on High Street. The center contains the academic and career counseling and advising offices that serve journalism and communications students. Before joining the UO faculty in 1955, Hulteng was chief editorial writer at The Providence (R.I.) Journal. In 1961 the university awarded Hulteng the Ersted Distinguished Teaching Award. Hulteng assumed the dean's chair in Allen Hall in 1962 and served until 1968. After a visiting professorship at Stanford University in the early 1970s, he returned to the UO dean's chair in 1975 and left again in 1977 to join the Stanford faculty. He retired in 1986. His 1976 book, "The Messenger's Motives," is widely considered an important benchmark work in the area of media ethics and his "The Opinion Function" was a critically acclaimed text on editorial writing. The Bend Bulletin's March 18, 1996, editorial page contained the following eulogy: "John Hulteng ... was attracted to the University of Oregon as a journalism teacher. Later, somewhat unwillingly, he became dean of journalism in Eugene. But his first love was teaching. He was honored by the University of Oregon faculty as an outstanding teacher. The faculty even forgave his lack of a Ph.D. degree. When not teaching, he wrote. He wrote wisely and well about editors, what they should be, what they should do, and how they should do it. He became the nation's best-known writer on matters of journalistic ethics. Still it was as a teacher--at Eugene and later at Stanford--that Hulteng shone. He was the beloved leader of his serious students. He was admired greatly by those who practiced the trade. He was an admired colleague of his academic fellows. He was a truly unique individual, and there are too few of that kind among us." Hulteng's children, who also participated in the dedication ceremony, include Robert from San Francisco, Richard from Tualatin and Karen Enich from Minnetonka, Minn. The Hulteng family declined to name the exact size of their gift, but they have pledged to fully endow a chair that requires more than $1 million. The Hulteng chair is the fifth endowed position to be named at the UO School of Journalism and Communication. Previously endowed positions include the Chambers Distinguished Professor of Advertising, the KEZI Distinguished Professor of Broadcast Journalism and a yet to be named chair in public relations and a Philip Knight chair. -30- #G-1040/Local,OrDailies,PDX,Special