Franklin Banner Biography
Franklin C. Banner led Penn State’s Department of Journalism during its formative years when the program grew and first became accredited. A former newspaper reporter and editor, Banner became the first head of the department in 1931 and was instrumental in building it until his retirement in 1956.
A native of Unionville, Missouri, Banner received his B.A. and M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri. After graduating, he worked on the staffs of the Kansas City Journal, Chicago Journal and Chicago Daily News. He also spent three years directing the journalism curriculum at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He later lived in England where he earned a Graduate Diploma in Journalism at the University of London, while also serving as a correspondent for American newspapers.
Returning to the U.S., he joined the editing staff of the Chicago Daily Journal, then in 1926 he accepted a position as an instructor of English and Journalism at Penn State. At the time, journalism classes were taught as part of the English department curriculum but driven by strong student demand the journalism program was entering a period of significant growth. In 1929,Penn State trustees approved journalism becoming a new department. Two years later, the department joined the American Association of Schools and Departments of Journalism.
Banner developed strong ties to the state’s newspaper publishers and editors, regularly inviting them to speak to the department’s classes. He was instrumental in founding the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers’ Association Advisory Committee to Department of Journalism, as well as the Pennsylvania Press Conference, an annual gathering of the state’s newspaper editors. Nationally, he was elected vice president of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism in 1930 and named co-editor of Journalism Quarterly, the leading publication of the academic field.
During Banner’s tenure as department head, the number of students majoring in journalism grew from about 50 to more than 1,000. The number of faculty members grew from two to eleven. In 1948, the Department of Journalism was accredited by the American Council on Journalism Education, the forerunner of today’s Accreditation Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. At the time, it was the only journalism program in Pennsylvania to be accredited. In the early 1950s, Banner led the effort to raise the standing of the program from a department to a more autonomous School of Journalism within Liberal Arts. Achieved in 1955, the elevation to School status was an important step on the path to the creation of today’s College of Communications.
Banner had a great interest in global journalism, and for more than two decades traveled around the world interviewing editors and publishers in foreign countries. He published studies of the foreign press.
In 1954, he received the Distinguished Service Award of Pennsylvania Society of Newspaper Editors and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers’ Association.
Banner retired from Penn State in 1956 and moved to Southern California. He died in 1983 at the age of 88.