I’m honored and humbled to share with you one of my proudest professional achievements:  I was named the Society of Professional Journalists’ Regional Director of the Year, largely because of work by a committee I led that investigated the ouster of a journalism newspaper adviser at Ocean County College in New Jersey. The teacher was later re-instated.

From 2004-2006, I represented the 1,500-plus SPJ members throughout the Northeast on the organizations national board.

Here’s the SPJ release on the award.

Chicago — The Society of Professional Journalists is pleased to honor Carl Corry with the Regional Director of the Year Award.

Each year, SPJ honors an outstanding regional director for exceptional service and contributions to their region and the Society during the preceding year. Nominations for the award may be made by chapters or members.

Carl Corry is the director of Region 1, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Corry, editor of the Long Island Business News, was the president of the Press Club of Long Island, SPJ’s fifth-largest chapter, for three years.

SPJ president-elect Christine Tatum stated that Corry was selected for “his longstanding commitment to the national board. For his energy and effort to keep SPJ alive in New York – and New England for that matter. For his exhaustive contributions to a thorough and important report detailing the dismissal of an Ocean County College student newspaper adviser from her job.”

Corry worked with three others on an independent investigation into the decision made by the board of trustees of Ocean County College in New Jersey not to reappoint Karen Bosley, adviser to the student newspaper for 35 years. The newspaper had been critical of the administration, but the administration denied that had anything to do with the decision, stating that she was terminated because of the newspaper’s error rate and the use of Macintosh computers (which they said was not the technology used in the real world of journalism).

“In particular I respect his independence when conducting that investigation of Ocean County College,” said Mead Loop, SPJ vice president of campus chapter affairs. “All of the regional directors do a lot, and yet he probably talked to dozens of people with the Ocean County College story.”

The task force report, released in May, recommended that Bosley be reinstated. Bosley filed a lawsuit in June against upper-level college administrators, alleging they violated her First Amendment rights and discriminated against her based on her age.

“Declaring his independence from the full board and SPJ to do this investigation I think speaks highly of Carl,” Loop said.

Corry was recognized during the President’s Installation Banquet at the 2006 SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference in Chicago.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.