photo by: University of Kansas

Ann Brill

The longtime dean of the University of Kansas’ journalism school will leave the position this summer to return to teaching duties at the school.

Ann Brill plans to step down as dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications prior to the start of the fall 2025 semester, according to a KU message sent to journalism faculty, staff and students this week.

“The fields of journalism and communications have experienced rapid and disruptive changes in recent years, and – in collaboration with faculty, staff, donors and alumni – Dean Brill has worked to ensure the school remains one of the leading and more innovative programs in the nation,” KU Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer said in the announcement. “Ann’s leadership and commitment have been truly extraordinary, and it has been a great privilege and pleasure for me to work with her in support of the school.”

Brill has served 20 years as dean of KU’s journalism school, and last year received the nation’s top award for journalism school administrators from the Scripps Howard Fund and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

At that time, Brill said she was proud of enrollment numbers at the school during her tenure, the creation of the state’s only doctoral program in journalism and a $7 million renovation project that made significant changes to the school’s 125-year-old building on the Lawrence campus. That renovation added new technology, including a full television studio, to Stauffer-Flint Hall.

The announcement said that Brill plans “to return to the faculty at the start of the fall 2025 semester,” which has been a practice of several former deans at KU, including recently in the business school and the pharmacy school.

Bichelmeyer, in the announcement, said work is underway to select an interim dean for the journalism school. Planning also has begun for a national search to find the school’s next full-time dean, she said. Bichelmeyer said she hopes to have a search committee comprised of faculty, staff, students and alumni in place by this summer. She said the committee likely will begin its work in the fall, with a goal of having a new dean selected in the spring of 2026.