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The Kansas Scholastic Press Association would like to congratulate Dean Ann Brill of the University of Kansas on winning the 2024 Friend of KSPA Award. This award recognizes a professional partner’s efforts to support KSPA and scholastic journalism on a state or local level. 

Brill is the dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Three past and current KSPA board members — Kathy Habiger of Mill Valley, Jim McCrossen of Blue Valley Northwest and Becky Tate of Shawnee Mission North — provided letters nominating Brill.

In her letter of recommendation for Brill, Tate listed many ways that KSPA has been helped by Brill: by helping hire three different KSPA directors, by introducing students to KSPA at fall and state conferences and being KSPA’s “biggest cheerleader.”

Habiger wrote this:

[A]s a member of the KSPA executive board for over 20 years, I have witnessed over and over the ways she has supported KSPA. But she took that support to another level during the pandemic. When everything was shutting down and KSPA was struggling to keep connections with students and advisers through its programing and contests, Dean Brill took to heart the huge financial blow it would have on the organization. So she covered expenses for KSPA for the better part of two years, helping us recover from a loss of revenue due to canceled programming, and a temporary dip in membership and contest participation. This single act demonstrates her unwavering support for KSPA, student journalists and journalism advisers.

Another former KSPA president, McCrossen wrote this:

It would be quite accurate to say Dean Brill is a fan of KSPA. She provides office space, office help for the executive director, and the salary for the teaching side of the executive director position along with other financial and human resources help. Dean Brill not only understands the need for a strong scholastic journalism program in Kansas, she wants to do all she can to make it the premiere scholastic journalism program in the country–which is honestly is.

The Kansas Scholastic Press Association is proud to name Ann Brill as the 2024 Friend of KSPA. 

Dean Ann Brill of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas accepts her Friend of KSPA Award at the 50th Anniversary Luncheon at the Kansas Union on May 4, 2024.