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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Chris Waddle, a community journalism veteran fresh from his year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, will head The University of Alabama's groundbreaking teaching-newspaper program as founding director.

UA Dean E. Culpepper Clark, of the College of Communication and Information Sciences, announced the appointment, effective immediately.

Waddle will direct the Knight Community Journalism Fellows Program. Participants will receive the University's journalism master of arts degree for study over 12 months inside The Anniston Star, a renowned family newspaper in Alabama.

"Our goal is to establish a model for improving journalism education in such a way as to bring vitality and excitement to a field essential to healthy democracies," Clark said. "Chris Waddle is the ideal person for this tall order."

Waddle recently completed a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. He taught in Europe as a Fulbright Professor and at the University of South Florida as Clendinen Professor. His professional career spans six newspapers, including The Kansas City Times, which won two Pulitzer Prizes in 1982 while he was managing editor.

H. Brandt Ayers, Anniston Star publisher and chairman of Consolidated Publishing, and Eric Newton, director of journalism initiatives at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, saluted the appointment.

"Chris has known this trailblazing program since it was a germ of an idea," said Ayers. "He brings to the job the authority of deep learning matched with a sympathetic understanding of the community's values, strengths and foibles."

"Chris can make the teaching newspaper work. He'll combine the fine wine of academia and the fresh fish of news into an extraordinary meal for a group of lucky students," said Newton. "We expect this program to produce graduates who want to make a career out of community journalism, which is, after all, the most prolific form of journalism in America."

Waddle worked at the Anniston paper from 1982 until his appointment to direct the new community journalism program. He served the Star as managing editor, editorial page editor, executive editor and vice president/news. In addition to being founding director of the new program, he continues as president of the Ayers Family Institute for Community Journalism, an educational tax-exempt initiative of The Anniston Star.

Investment by the University, Consolidated Publishing and Knight Foundation will total $2.75 million over the teaching newspaper's first five years. The first students will arrive in fall 2006. UA's faculty will design the curriculum and teach the courses, supplemented by staff from the Star and guest faculty.

"These master's students will study the principles, history, law and operations of American media as well as allied work in history, literature and the sociology of community," Clark said. "Basing the program at a newspaper allows students to learn by example inside a newspaper acclaimed for its commitment to community journalism. The principles learned, however, apply to any media of any size that truly want to get close to their communities."

A Web site, journal, annual national conference and subsidized placement of graduates will complement and enhance the program's aspirations for community journalism.

"The idea is to reinforce the journalistic role of being a constant and intimate community member in a changing and increasingly impersonal profession," Waddle said.

Waddle holds degrees from Birmingham-Southern College and Columbia University. He worked for The Louisville Times and The Courier-Journal, The Birmingham Post-Herald and The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.

The Anniston Star is on many lists of America's best newspapers. Time magazine honored it as one of the nation's best newspapers regardless of size.

Waddle's appointment as director of the Knight Community Journalism Fellows Program is accompanied by an appointment to UA's journalism faculty.

The National Communication Association, the nation's largest association of communication scholars, recently ranked UA's doctoral program in mass communication seventh in the nation, while an accrediting agency cited all the college's programs as "tier one in every respect."

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Since 1950, the foundation has approved more than $260 million in journalism grants.