Title: UK Faculty Leadership, then and now

Davy writes:  “The arrival of newly elected faculty members to the Senate Council in January has provided an occasion to make historical note of an earlier and the present faculty leadership.”

Current membership of the Senate Council is posted at https://www.uky.edu/universitysenate/senate-council-roster

This is the sixth post in an occasional series, “Davy Jones’ Locker.”  Follow along with Davy Jones, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, as he explores various aspects of University of Kentucky history through the University Archives and online at ExploreUK.uky.edu.  The “locker” in the accompanying photograph is one of the cubicles in the Special Collections Research Center’s Breckinridge Research Room where researchers can put their personal items.

Sesquicentennial Stories: The Promise of Uk #118

Marguerite McLaughlin was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 30, 1882. She was a Journalist educator at the University of Kentucky, where she earned her AB in 1903. McLaughlin died November 25, 1961.

McLaughlin when she earned her BA from State College (UK) in 1903

 McLaughlin was one of the first, if not the first woman, to handle general reporting assignments for a newspaper in the South. She worked for the Lexington Herald as a drama and music critic, she handled murder cases, and served as farm editor from 1917 to 1918. Marguerite McLaughlin was a 40-year veteran reporter and a charter member of Theta Sigma Phi.

McLaughlin was the first woman teacher of journalism in the United States and she trained many well-known journalists including the late Joe Creason, George Michler, Thornton Connell of the Courier-Journal, Dr. Niel Plummer, former head of the UK School of Journalism; Don Whitehead, Pulitzer prize-winning AP press reporter; Governor Keen Johnson; Senators Earle Clements and Tom Underwood.

McLaughlin holding tickets for UK's loss to Indiana in New Orleans' Sugar Bowl. Image credited to the Times Picayune, 1940 December 30

McLaughlin served as executive secretary of the UK Alumni Association during each World War; served 20 years (1920-1940) as President of the Lexington Alumni Club, and 30 years (1920-1950) as a member of the Association's executive committee.

In the Classroom

 During World War II, McLaughlin endeared herself to military alumni by having the Kernel sent to them wherever they were stationed. During the early 1950s, she was honored with the "Pro Ecclesiae et Pontificae" award by Pope Pius XII, the highest award which can be given to a Catholic laywoman.

In 1950, McLaughlin received the Alumni Association's Alma Magna Mater Award; in 1959 the Marguerite McLaughlin room in the Journalism Building was dedicated along with her portrait which hangs there today. She retired from UK after 38 years of teaching and then served as President of Welsh Printing Company for a number of years. Marguerite McLaughlin was named to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni on April 11, 1980.

UK Libraries Special Collections houses the Marguerite McLaughlin papers and photographs