Rik Whitaker retires after 23 years at Buffalo State

Rik Whitaker, former chair of the department and professor of broadcasting, retired last May, leaving both a professional and personal void that will be difficult to fill.

Whitaker joined Buffalo State in 1984 as professor of journalism and broadcasting and chair of the Communication Department after holding a similar post at the American University in Cairo and prior journalism positions at San Jose State, Central Missouri, Ohio University and West Virginia University. He had also been a journalist at the Messenger in Athens, Ohio; San Jose Mercury-News; KVAL-TV in Eugene, Oregon; KXTV in Sacramento; and KNTV in San Jose, and served as a public affairs officer with the U.S. Navy Reserve.

The department's utility player, Whitaker specialized in media writing and international communication, but also taught everything from introductory survey courses in mass media and society to graduate seminars in communication. His courses included feature writing, broadcast journalism and production, mass communication history, ethics, audience effects, political communication and propaganda, communication theory and research, and communication and national development.

A strong advocate of high standards for both students and faculty, Whitaker spearheaded the development of a textbook on media writing that he co-authored with Department Chair Ron Smith and former chair and Dean of University College Janet Ramsey. The book is used in about 50 schools across the country.

Whitaker delivered the keynote address, in which he said goodbye to his colleagues and students, at the 2007 Pi Lambda Eta Honor Society induction ceremony in April. Read Whitaker's farewell address.

Before coming to Buffalo State, he spent three years as an associate professor of Mass Communication at The American University in Cairo, serving as Chairman of the Department of Economics, Political Science and Mass Communication from 1982-84. An associate professor of Mass Communication and graduate coordinator at Central Missouri State University from 1977-1981, Whitaker also taught at San Jose State University (1972-77), Ohio University (1969-72) and West Virginia University (1968-69).

A native of San Francisco, he graduated from San Jose State College in 1964 with a B.A. in Radio-TV Journalism, joining KNTV television in San Jose in 1963 while completing his degree. He worked first as a news reporter-film editor-photographer, then became late night news producer-director. In 1967, he took a position at KXTV television in Sacramento, Calif., as a news photographer, where he covered the state capitol. He left later that year to begin graduate study at the School of Journalism at the University of Oregon, and began work in 1968 at KVAL television in Eugene, Ore., as late night news producer, taking graduate classes by day and working nights and weekends for the station. He received his M.S. in Journalism from Oregon in 1969 while teaching at West Virginia University.

He returned to San Jose during the summer of 1969 and worked for the San Jose Mercury-News on the rewrite desk and as a general assignment reporter. He began doctoral study at Ohio University that September, teaching part-time while taking courses, and joined the staff of the Athens (Ohio) Messenger in 1969 as a Sunday editor. While working full-time during the summer of 1970, his coverage of community events following student rioting at Ohio University the previous spring won the newspaper an award from the Ohio Newspaper Publisher's Association.

Whitaker continued with the paper until mid-1971 when he took on additional teaching assignments while working on his doctoral dissertation, "Warren G. Harding and the Press." He received his Ph.D. in Mass Communication in June 1972, then returned to San Jose to teach at San Jose State. He worked part-time as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury-News from 1972-73 and 1976-77. He contributed news analysis articles to the Athens Messenger while in Cairo, and was an associate producer with a family-owned video production company in San Jose as a writer, photographer and consultant from 1974-86.
Whitaker served with the U. S. Naval Reserve, beginning with two years of active duty with the Navy after high school aboard the USS Pictor, where he made two trips to the Far East in 1959 and 1960. He received an honorable discharge in 1964 as a Quartermaster third class. Commissioned in 1974 as a Lieutenant (j.g.), public affairs, he was affiliated with Reserve units in San Francisco; Kansas City, Mo.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Erie, Pa.; and New York City, and participated in public affairs training duty in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Indianapolis, Norfolk, New York City and at sea. He was the public affairs officer aboard the helicopter assault ship USS Nassau when the first Pentagon press pool was mobilized for an exercise off Honduras in 1985. He retired as a Commander in December 1994.

In addition to his text on media writing, he has published articles in the Encyclopedia of New York State, History of the Mass Media in the United States, Journalism Quarterly, Journalism History, Middle East Review and Northwest Ohio Quarterly, and contributed book reviews to Journalism Quarterly, Journalism History and Public Relations Review. A past member of the history and radio-TV divisions of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, he presented four papers at the national conventions. Articles he wrote for the Navy have appeared in such diverse publications as The Curator, U.S. Navy Medicine and the Naval Reservist News. He was a member of the Foreign Press Club in Cairo, Egypt, and has served on the boards of directors of the Buffalo chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Buffalo-Western New York Council for International Visitors and the Western New York Bed and Breakfast Association.

Whitaker is married to the former Ramona Pando Kinser and has two children: Christina, of Columbia, Md., and Christopher, who owns a computer software consulting firm, DesignStream, in Singapore. Since 1990, he and his wife have owned and operated a bed and breakfast inn in their home, (www.beaufleuve.com) a restored Queen Anne Victorian built in 1881.

In praising Whitaker for his service, Department Chair Smith noted, "Only a few years before retirement, Rik retooled himself and led the Communication Department to face the new technological demands and opportunities associated with the Internet, websites, on-line video and other forms of what we call converged media. He developed our Communication Technology course and our Online News Reporting Course.

"The legacy that Rik Whitaker leaves us is one of service, consistency, high energy, higher standards, and most particularly, the vision of the highest possible professionalism that we can model in ourselves and mold in our students."