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Raul Reis will step down on August 1 from his role as dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he announced in an email to Hussman faculty and staff on Friday.
Reis has led UNC Hussman since 2022, taking over in the wake of a high-profile fight over the appointment of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. UNC-CH deans are typically evaluated in five-year cycles to continue in their position, with the evaluation occurring at the end of the fourth year. Reis just completed his fourth year.
The Hussman school, which offers programs in advertising/public relations and journalism, currently enrolls around 1,200 undergraduates and more than 100 graduate students. The media and journalism major was the third most popular among the university’s class of 2025.
“Serving as dean of UNC Hussman has been the honor of a lifetime,” Reis said in his email.
Reis also holds the title of John T. Kerr Distinguished Professor in the journalism school, and will remain as faculty after taking a leave for research this fall, he said.
Before Reis took the helm, the school was embroiled in a tenure controversy surrounding Hannah-Jones, a New York Times reporter best known for her work on the 1619 Project. Hannah-Jones was recruited by the journalism school’s previous dean, Susan King, to serve as the Knight Chair for Race and Investigative Journalism. But UNC-CH’s Board of Trustees initially didn’t offer Hannah-Jones tenure, as had been done for previous Knight chairs. The Assembly reported that concern emerged behind the scenes from a donor over Hannah-Jones’ ties to the 1619 Project.
The decision sparked protests and debates over academic freedom and systemic racism, leading the Board of Trustees to vote to offer her tenure after all. Hannah-Jones turned down the position and instead took a job at Howard University.
At the beginning of his tenure, Reis said one of his goals was to increase diversity in the journalism school, which had been downgraded by its accreditor over the issue. In his first months, he worked with faculty and staff to announce a diversity, equity, and inclusion action plan to address some of the concerns outlined by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
It called for a student advisory council to create a channel between Reis and “diverse student groups,” as well as increased diversity among the school’s student body and faculty. Reis also helped the journalism school host its first student-led walkout in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2023.
In May 2024, ACEJMC restored full accreditation status to the school. But as the school prepares for its next reaffirmation, there may be room for further improvement. In a pre-accreditation survey of Hussman faculty and staff conducted between January and February of this year, obtained by The Assembly, respondents generally felt positively about the school’s efforts to foster a sense of belonging—but only “barely so,” the report states.
The report also showed signs of discord: “Respondents described serious division within the School.” Some respondents also expressed frustration with internal communication, with one person saying that the problem stemmed from Reis’ office.
“There is a persistent lack of communication from the Dean’s office, even in response to direct queries,” the unidentified respondent wrote. “I believe that individual executive leadership team members do a comparatively better job keeping faculty/staff informed of matters under their purview, but it is really difficult to understand the School in a holistic way: what it is doing, where it is going, what is the vision for the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media in 2026?”
The report also mentioned general concerns of being overworked, remaining rooted in the past, and the school missing a sense of strategic leadership or long-term priorities.
The journalism school won the national championship in collegiate journalism, the Hearst Journalism Awards Program, all four years Reis was dean. UNC Hussman also launched a political communication program during Reis’s tenure. The program allows students to take a select number of courses centered around political communication and media and spend a semester in Washington.
“I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished together over these past four years,” Reis said in his email to faculty and staff. “I have been both humbled and inspired by a community so united around the shared purpose of providing our students with the very best learning experiences, mentorship and support throughout their Carolina journey and beyond. That community-wide dedication makes us the envy of our peers and will continue to guide our future.”
Before coming to UNC-CH, Reis was the dean of Emerson College’s School of Communication and of Florida International University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He also worked as a journalist for Brazilian and U.S. news organizations.
In an email sent to campus on Friday, UNC-CH Provost Magnus Egerstedt said an interim dean would be named in the coming weeks.
