Joel Fleishman, Founder, Former Director and Friend.
Joel Fleishman’s legacy lives on in countless individuals supported by and working in the educational institutions he created and shaped over his decades of service, including the Sanford School of Public Policy, our home at Duke. With his passing on Monday, October 1, 2024, we in the DeWitt Wallace Center share the immense gratitude and equal sense of loss for our friend Joel, who founded the DeWitt Wallace Center just over 50 years ago.
Joel gave form to Terry Sanford’s ideas of bringing journalism to Duke to add “real world” perspectives to “Ivory Tower” thinking. He wrote a vision of our Center into the strategic plans of Duke and the School of Public Policy (then Institute). Joel raised what we now call start-up funding, and then served as director until he could staff the Center with leaders known not only for their illustrious careers, but also a firm grounding in media ethics in the 1970’s. After a decade, he affirmed the value of our work through a years-long campaign to endow the Center and its faculty in the 1980’s. And to his final day, Joel remained a friend and guide with clear-eyed belief in the value of the Press as a core tenet of democracy, and the potential of Duke students – and all of us in the DeWitt Wallace Center — to serve.
His memory is the greatest of blessings.