Biography
Lucy A. Dalglish became Dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland on August 1, 2012. Located inside the Washington Beltway, Merrill College is one of the nation’s leading journalism schools. Its undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs produce journalists and scholars prepared to inform the public using cutting-edge techniques and technologies.
Dalglish served as executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press from 2000 to 2012. The Reporters Committee is a voluntary, unincorporated association of reporters and news editors dedicated to protecting the First Amendment interests of the news media. Based in Arlington, Va., the Reporters Committee has provided research, guidance and representation in major press cases in state and federal courts since 1970.
Prior to assuming the Reporters Committee position, Dalglish was a media lawyer for almost five years in the trial department of the Minneapolis law firm of Dorsey & Whitney.
From 1980 to 1993, Dalglish was a reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. As a reporter, she covered beats ranging from general assignment and suburbs to education and courts. During her last three years at the Pioneer Press, she served as night city editor, assistant news editor and national/foreign editor.
Dalglish was awarded the Kiplinger Award by the National Press Foundation in 2012 for her service to journalism. In September 2015, she was named a Fellow of the Society by the Society of Professional Journalists, which also awarded her the Wells Memorial Key, the highest honor bestowed by the Society of Professional Journalists, in 1995. A year later, she was one of 24 journalists, lawyers, lawmakers, educators, researchers, librarians and historians inducted into the charter class of the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C.
Dalglish appears frequently in print, online and broadcast stories about issues involving the media and the First Amendment. She has been a national leader in supporting open meeting and open records laws at the state and federal level, as well as a key player over the past 10 years in the effort to pass state and federal reporters “shield laws.” She serves on the boards or advisory committees of the American Society of News Editors, Freedom Forum Institute, and the Maryland, DC, Delaware Press Association Foundation.
At the University of Maryland, she has chaired search committees to hire deans for the business school, vice president for diversity & inclusion, and the vice president and university counsel. In 2017-18, she co-chaired a joint President and University Senate Taskforce on Inclusion and Respect.
She was recently elected to represent journalism school deans on the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Dalglish earned a juris doctor degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1995; a master of studies in law degree from Yale Law School in 1988; and a bachelor of arts in journalism from the University of North Dakota in 1980. While attending UND, Dalglish worked as managing editor of the Dakota Student and as a reporter and editor for the Grand Forks Herald. She lives in McLean, Va., with her husband, Mark McNair.