WHY WE GIVE 100 YEARS OF SUPPORT The Hubbard School wouldn’t be what it is today without a century of generous giving from alumni and local media giants. COMPILED BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES
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THE HUBBARD FAMILY The Hubbard family has been transforming media for 100 years, ever since a 26-year-old named Stanley E. Hubbard launched a tiny Twin Cities radio station with little more than hustle and grit. That small seed grew into a media giant. The Hubbards have been making ground-breaking advances in media and journalism for nearly a century: Stanley E. Hubbard developed the first-ever advertising-supported radio station, and decades later, his son, Stanley S. Hubbard anticipated and developed major opportunities in satellite newsgathering. Today, Hubbard family members run portions of Hubbard Broadcasting, which encompasses dozens of radio and television stations, along with other ventures, including the cable network Reelz. In 2000, the Hubbard family made a transformational gift of $10 million to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the School’s largest-ever gift. The gift made a difference to every student who’s been through the School since then. Hubbard-funded scholarships and fellowships have supported many undergraduate and graduate students. The Hubbard support has been a rare and precious type of philanthropy: restriction-free. That flexibility has allowed the School to invest in faculty retention packages, set up packages for newly hired faculty, match other donor gifts, and make infrastructure improvements.
MURPHY REPORTER ❙ Winter 2022
WILLIAM J. MURPHY William James Murphy bought the Minneapolis Tribune in 1891. He revised its business management as well as its editorial methods; he brought it through the financial crises of 1893 and 1907, as well as a disastrous fire in 1899. He modernized its equipment, bringing to Minneapolis the first Mergenthaler typesetting machines and other innovations. Under his management the three Tribunes—morning, evening and Sunday—developed with the state and the Northwest, and maintained a leading voice in the public affairs region. At his death in 1918, Murphy provided in his will for the “W.J. Murphy Endowment Fund for a School of Journalism… for the establishing and maintaining… of instruction in journalism” at the University of Minnesota. In 1940, Murphy Hall opened as the School’s home.
JOHN COWLES, SR., AND ELIZABETH BATES COWLES In 1976, the Cowles endowed $2 million to the School to be used for a Cowles Chair, the Minnesota Journalism Center, and a mid-career fellowship program for journalists interested in media management. Cowles, the retired chairman of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company, said at the time of the gift that he hoped it would “strengthen the University’s role in journalism and journalism education … and elevate the standards of journalism in Minnesota and the nation.” Cowles bought the Minneapolis Star in 1935 and turned it into the largest of the three Minneapolis evening newspapers within a half decade. Elizabeth Cowles was the founder of the Maternal Health League, which became Planned Parenthood in Iowa in the 1930s and was a life member of the NAACP. At the time, the Cowles gift was one of the largest single gifts to be presented to the University of Minnesota.
