Kathleen McElroy

Kathleen Oveta McElroy is an American academic and journalist, the holder of the Frank A. Bennack Jr. Chair in journalism, and the former director of the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin from 2018 to 2022.

Education
McElroy received a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in broadcast journalism and minoring in theater arts from Texas A&M University in 1981. While working for The New York Times, she attended New York University, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in 2010. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2014.

Journalism career
McElroy's career in journalism began when she worked as a news and sports copy editor for The Bryan-College Station Eagle in 1983. She worked for The Huntsville Item in 1984. Then she was hired by the Austin American-Statesman in 1985 as a sports copy editor, later becoming an assistant arts & entertainment editor and ended working for the Austin newspaper in 1987. Later, McElroy worked for The New York Times for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1991, where she held various management positions, including associate managing editor, dining editor, deputy sports editor and deputy website editor. She left her position at the Times to pursue her doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin.

Texas A&M hiring incident
In June 2023, McElroy was selected to lead Texas A&M University's journalism program. A month later, negotiations broke down due to changes in the offer given to McElroy, which initially was a tenured full-professor position, with press, faculty, and McElroy reporting that "outside influences" had rejected the nomination. McElroy ultimately rejected the final offer, which had been watered down to a one-year contract that could be terminated at any time, and decided to remain at the University of Texas at Austin. M. Katherine Banks, the president of Texas A&M University, rejected the claims made by the media in a meeting with the Faculty Senate, claiming that she was unaware of any changes to the initial job offer.

Following the media backlash, the interim dean of the Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences, José Luis Bermúdez, resigned.

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023, the Texas A&M Faculty Senate passed a resolution to create a fact-finding committee into the mishandling of the hiring of McElroy. During that meeting, Banks told faculty members that she did not approve changes to an offer letter that led McElroy to walk away from negotiations amid conservative backlash to her hiring. Hart Blanton, the head of the university's Department of Communication and Journalism released a statement through his lawyer on July 21 that challenged Banks' statements from a July 19 faculty meeting in which she suggested that she didn't know why changes were made in the offers to McElroy. Blanton claimed that Banks had actually "injected herself into the process atypically and early on" and that a diminished offer given to McElroy had his signature forged on it by the university. In his statement, Blanton also said "the unusual level of scrutiny given to... Dr. McElroy was acknowledged by one administrator to have been based, at least in part, on race".

Banks submitted her resignation late in the evening of July 20 due to the fiasco.

McElroy hired legal counsel after the events. On August 3, 2023, Texas A&M confirmed that they reached a settlement with McElroy for $1 million.

Personal life
Kathleen McElroy is the daughter of Lucinda Martin and George McElroy, the first African-American to earn a master's degree in journalism from the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. She is a native of the Third Ward of Houston.

Career chronology

 * 1983 The Bryan-College Station Eagle
 * 1984 The Huntsville Item
 * 1985-1987 Austin American-Statesman
 * 1987-1989 Newsday
 * 1989-1991 The National Sports Daily
 * 1991-2011 The New York Times
 * 2014-2016 Oklahoma State University
 * 2016–present University of Texas at Austin