UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters will visit the University Park campus and present keynote lectures on back-to-back days during the annual Foster-Foreman Conference of Distinguished Writers.
Tom Hallman Jr., a retired feature writer/columnist for the (Portland) Oregonian, kicks off the two-day conference with a lecture at 6 p.m. Oct. 28. Maria Hinojosa, a broadcast journalist, podcast producer and media entrepreneur, wraps up the event at 6 p.m. Oct. 29. Both sessions will take place in Foster Auditorium of Paterno Library and will include question-and-answer sessions after the visitors share examples and discuss their work.
Hallman won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, for “The Boy Behind the Mask,” in 2001. He was a finalist for a Pulitzer on two previous occasions.
Hinojosa, the founder of Futuro Media and a host of “Latino USA,” won the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting in 2022 for the podcast series “Suave.”
The Foster-Foreman Conference was designed to bring students together with standout journalists who could serve as role models in the profession.
Made possible by a gift from Penn State alumni Larry and Ellen Foster, the conference was initially named in their honor and then renamed in 2011 to honor Gene Foreman, the Penn State faculty member who directed the event from its inception in 1999 until his retirement in 2006.
Larry Foster, who died in October 2013, was a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus and Lion’s Paw Medal recipient who retired in 1990 as vice president of public relations at Johnson & Johnson.
An author himself, he published “Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel” in 1999. Foster served on the Penn State Board of Trustees from 1980 to 1989 and was president of the Alumni Association and the Penn State Fund Council. Before joining Johnson & Johnson, he was a reporter, bureau chief and night editor of the Newark News in New Jersey. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Penn State in 1948. Ellen (Miller) Foster has, along with her late husband, been committed for many years to philanthropy at Penn State. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University in 1949.
Foreman joined Penn State in 1998 after retiring from the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he managed newsroom operations for more than 25 years under various titles — managing editor, executive editor and deputy editor. During his tenure, the Inquirer won 18 Pulitzer Prizes.
At Penn State, he was the Larry and Ellen Foster Professor from 1999 until his retirement from full-time teaching in December 2006. He taught courses in news editing, news media ethics and newspaper management. In 2003, Foreman received two awards for excellence in teaching in the Bellisario College — the Alumni Society Award and the Deans' Excellence Award. In 2013, the Alumni Society gave him the first Douglas A. Anderson Contributor Award in recognition of his work on behalf of the Bellisario College.