King Distinguished Professorship in Advertising established

The Karen W. and Daniel J. King Distinguished Professorship in Advertising has been created in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, announced Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College.

Karen King, a Jim Kennedy Professor of New Media and professor of advertising, has taught at Grady College for 35 years. She is retiring this summer.

“Karen King has been a mainstay at Grady College, winning awards for her teaching and research while serving as a department chair and as a respected senior faculty member,” Davis said. “Now she and Dan have added to the rich King legacy at Grady with this magnificent addition to the advertising faculty’s resources.”

The King Distinguished Professorship is created to help support the continued research and scholarship in advertising in the AdPR department.

“This professorship allows us to honor all of the outstanding advertising scholars and educators who came before me at Grady College such as Tom Russell, Len Reid, Dean Krugman and Spencer Tinkham,” Karen said. “It ensures that there will be senior advertising scholars on the faculty to benefit our graduate and undergraduate students, as well as the department.”

Earlier gifts from the Kings supported graduate students studying advertising and the Ron Lane Advertising Executive in Residency Fund.

In addition to Karen, Daniel taught briefly at Grady College, leading a law and public relations class.  Daniel, a lawyer, currently teaches an international arbitration class at the University of Georgia School of Law each spring.

Karen King has had an impact that has extended beyond UGA noted Bryan Reber, the C. Richard Yarbrough Professor of Crisis Communication Leadership and head of the AdPR department.

“As immediate past president of the American Academy of Advertising, Karen has broad influence and respect among advertising educators,” Reber said. “And, because of her prolific record of advising Ph.D. students, her former students carry on the King legacy in the U.S. and beyond.  This generous gift from Karen and Dan cements both this legacy and the place of advertising education and scholarship at the University of Georgia.  We are enormously grateful.”

At Grady College, Karen most recently taught classes in advertising media planning, advertising campaigns and advertising research. Her research focuses on advertising industry issues and health communication. She has published much of her work in leading academic journals and is the co-author of three editions of Kleppner’s “Advertising Procedure,” a leading advertising textbook and “The Media Buying Simulation” textbook supplement.

Karen has been a Lilly Teaching Fellow and is a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, UGA’s highest teaching honor, among other honors during her time at UGA. Prior to teaching, Karen worked as a media buyer/planner and a research supervisor at FCB Communications, Inc. in Chicago.

Daniel is a retired partner of King & Spalding’s Atlanta and New York offices where he served as the leader of the firm’s Business Litigation Practice Group from 2003 to 2008. Since his retirement in 2010, Daniel has served on the boards of several non-profits including Goodwill of North Georgia, United Way of Greater Atlanta Advisory Board and the Georgia Technical College Foundation.

“Karen has filled these hallways with her energy and smiles since I was a graduate student at Grady, and generations of students honor her as their mentor,” Davis concluded. “This gift is one more way she will continue enriching students.”