Former Philadelphia Inquirer Reporter Huntly Collins
Teaching Journalism at La Salle University

“It wasn’t a job – it was more of a calling,” said Huntly Collins of her career as a newspaper reporter, including 18 years with the Philadelphia Inquirer, where she won many awards. Now, Collins is sharing her experiences as an Assistant Professor of Journalism at La Salle University.

"I went into journalism for a lot of reasons,” said Collins, who lives in Mt. Airy. “It gave me a chance to meet all kinds of people and have all kinds of adventures. It gave me an excuse to ask any kind of question I wanted to ask. And, most importantly, it provided a way for me to help make the world a better place to live."

“I came with a real commitment to have students write about real issues,” said Collins, who has traveled worldwide reporting on education, labor, and public health issues.

She retired from the Inquirer in 2001 to follow another passion: teaching. She has been to Johannesburg, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, and China to conduct workshops to train aspiring journalists how to cover the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

“There’s hardly a place I haven’t been to except Australia and New Zealand,” said Collins. “For me, journalism was a way to promote social justice. When I speak to students, I share those experiences, and I hope that by sharing, they will get a more realistic experience of the excitement and the challenge of being a journalist.”

Lynne Texter, Chair of La Salle’s Communication department, said, “It was her passion for working with students that really set her apart from some of the other candidates for the position. Her teaching session at her interview was one of the finest I've ever seen, and she has shared so many ideas about ways to enhance the education of our students.”

“For example, we've chatted about ways to have our students working in and writing about the neighborhoods surrounding La Salle,” said Texter. This will be a great experience for them and another way to further La Salle's mission of working with our community.”

Collins, who earned a Bachelor’s from Portland State University and a Master’s from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, first fell in love with journalism while editor of her high school newspaper. Her passion to write continued as she became editor of her college newspaper and later, a reporter for The Oregonian, a daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon near her hometown.

“I initially got started because my godfather was a photo journalist, and I’d follow him around on news stories. I had a lot of great adventures with him. I learned that journalism was a great adventure – you could visit places, interview people, and see things that you would never see as an ordinary citizen, and I found that exciting.”

-- Hannah Loper