It’s one of the program’s few rules, but it’s been an integral part of it since the beginning. Fellows apply with a project to work on for the year that is outside the scope of their day jobs, which they are also required to leave behind for the duration of their fellowship.
(Clemetson stresses that “small ‘f’ fellowship” is at the heart of the program).ĭuring their academic year on campus, fellows audit courses, conduct research, travel abroad, and attend seminars held every Tuesday and Thursday at Wallace House. There’s also a dining room, which gets cozy fast seating 20 fellows and guests, and the kitchen where “amazing mashups” happen, from Argentine-Italian dinners to small talk between an NPR reporter and New York Times bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell. Group photos of each cohort since 1973 line the wall. Just outside the library, several overstuffed chairs, many matching with the same nearly-scrapped floral upholstery recovered 30 years ago, are arranged around a coffee table and presentation space for guest speakers. Thanks to ongoing donor support, the program will celebrate its 50th anniversary this fall. Ten years later, after additional gifts from Mike Wallace and the Knight Foundation, the program, then called the Michigan Journalism Fellows, became the Knight-Wallace Fellowship. Wallace House has been the fellowship’s home and primary meeting space for seminars and socializing ever since. In 1992, Mike Wallace (AB ’39, HLLD ’87), and his wife, Mary, bought this historic Arts and Crafts home east of downtown Ann Arbor and central campus, and donated it to the fellowship. The program has brought some of the brightest and best news reporters from around the world to Ann Arbor to embed themselves on campus and leave with a renewed-or brand new-sense of purpose. Over the years, fellows came to think of it as a sabbatical for working journalists to recharge, explore, and think about the next step in their careers, especially during the industry disruptions of the 2000s. Established in 1973 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the original NEH Journalism Fellowship was launched to give journalists a chance to broaden and deepen their knowledge in a university setting. That’s where the Knight-Wallace Fellowship comes in. Especially now, where the digital cycle is 24 hours, there’s very little time for people to refresh.” “But the act of doing journalism can kind of beat that out. “Journalists are usually a bit idealistic and have some sort of desire to save the world, make things better, hold institutions and people accountable,” Clemetson said. Sitting in a small library filled with books by alumni and seminar guests, Wallace House Center for Journalists Director Lynette Clemetson talks passionately about journalism and the gift of time.
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