Former students and colleagues describe Samuel V. Kennedy III as an old-school newspaper guy, something people just don’t see anymore.

‘He just ran newspapers the way they ran newspapers for decades,’ said Aileen Gallagher, a student of Kennedy’s in 1998, several years before he retired from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Kennedy worked at Newhouse for 25 years.

Kennedy, an emeritus professor at Newhouse, died Monday surrounded by family and friends at age 75.

At the time of his retirement in 2001, Kennedy was an associate professor in the newspaper journalism department. He joined the Newhouse faculty in 1976 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 1980. He is also a former chair of the newspaper department and served on the University Senate since 1978.

Before his time at SU, Kennedy was with The Citizen-Advertiser in Auburn, N.Y., from 1960 to 1975. He spent many of those years as the publication’s editor-managing editor.

Gallagher, now an assistant professor in the Newhouse magazine department, said Kennedy was a big deal in that town. She said the newspaper was really important to the community because it kept the government, police and citizenry in check.

‘In a small city, the only people who are going to do that is the newspaper, and that is why they are so important,’ Gallagher said. ‘Sam was the embodiment of that role.’

The memory of using traditional newspaper production methods like pica poles, a typographic measurement system and scaling wheels instead of computers in Kennedy’s newspaper editing class is something Gallagher said she will never forget. She said even back then this was an absurd concept, but ‘that was the world professor Kennedy came from.’

When Roy Gutterman, now associate professor of communications law and journalism, walked into Newhouse as a prospective student, Kennedy was the first professor he met.

‘He was smoking a cigar and seemed uninterested,’ Gutterman said, adding this was a quality he appreciated.

‘He was like a real city editor,’ he said. ‘I thought he was like an old editor you would see in the movies.’

Gutterman said as a young student, he knew a professor like Kennedy would be a valuable person to be around. He said Kennedy was skeptical and hard to please, and what many considered great work, he considered adequate.

But Kennedy’s high standards and realistic viewpoints were to be respected, Gutterman said, as he believes an educator with this mindset helped prepare new editors and reporters for their futures.

Robert Shields, who attended Newhouse with Gutterman, said although he never had Kennedy as a professor, he still remembers the advice the respected editor gave him more than 20 years ago.

‘Twenty-five cents and a title will only buy you a cup of coffee’ was a phrase of Kennedy’s that stuck with Shields, who is now an executive production editor at the New York Daily News.

‘It meant only your work can show how good you are, not your title. The title doesn’t matter,’ said Shields.

Shields said that during their time at Newhouse Kennedy looked as if he had lived a long life, worn from years in the newspaper industry.

As a colleague, Joel Kaplan, associate dean of professional graduate studies at Newhouse, described Kennedy as the ‘nicest guy out there’ and very bright.

While he was the chair of the newspaper department, Kennedy was also pursing his doctorate degree in history in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Kaplan said he found this quite remarkable.

Several days ago, Kaplan caught up with Kennedy on the phone about their families. Although Kennedy held a lucid conversation, he told Kaplan ‘I’m on my last lap.’

To be able to speak with Kennedy before he died is something for which Kaplan said he is grateful.

He was committed to students and academic excellence, Kaplan said. Kennedy’s dedication made Newhouse a strong institution that would become one of the greatest communication schools in the country, Kaplan said.

‘I want people to know that when they think about where Newhouse is now and how successful it is,’ Kaplan said, ‘it is because SU is on backs of faculty members like Sam Kennedy.’

rebarill@syr.edu 

Published on February 21, 2012 at 12:00 pm