By: Mark Fitzgerald Will Sutton, the former National Association of Black Journalists president who co-founded Unity: Journalists of Color, is leaving the historically black Hampton University to head communications for a North Carolina non-profit education organization.
Sutton, a former editor of the Post Tribune in Gary, Ind., and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., had been a professor at the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton, and director of its Academy of Writing Excellence for the past three years.
While Hampton's j-school made headlines soon after its state-of-the-art facility opened with charges of administrative censorship of the school paper and academic content, Sutton, who joined the faculty after the controversies, said the school was going in the "right direction.
"I think the school has been on the right track since the controversy, and that the writing program has been an important part of helping moving the school in the right direction," he told E&P. "It's my prayer that the administration will continue to be supportive of the school and its mission."
The reason for leaving, Sutton said, was that he, and his family, had tired of the long commute between Hampton, located in the Tidewater area of Virginia, and his home in North Carolina.
'I've been commuting three hours and 40 minutes -- and that's at the best driving time," he said. "That's a long way to go. Hampton is my alma mater and I love it to death, but I love my family more."
At the end of August, Sutton begins his new position as director of communications and marketing for Achieving Your Dreams, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based non-profit that works with non-traditional students and students of color to gain admission to community college, succeed in school, and move on to four-year institutions.
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