Brittany Leitner wasn’t sure how she’d scrape together money for rent or food this summer in New York City. To her merit, Leitner scored a competitive, unpaid summer internship at Time Out New York magazine. But as a native Texan, commuting was out of the question.

Sure, she would’ve figured out the money somehow — after all, she funds her own education at Syracuse University. She came to SU from San Antonio to pursue a magazine journalism and English degree on her own dollar. She bought herself a plane ticket to get to Syracuse, a laptop on which to craft her articles, and a Lands’ End coat to stay warm.

‘Everything is all me,’ Leitner said. ‘I have always had a mindset that if I want something, I can get it, even though my background doesn’t easily set me up for it.’

Then Leitner received an email that changed everything.

During her shift as an office aide at Steele Hall,she read the note from Melissa Chessher, associate professor and chair of the magazine department, awarding her with a scholarship, enough money for two months’ rent.

‘I basically screamed for 10 minutes, I was so thrilled,’ Leitner said. ‘Now I don’t have to worry about the most important thing: making sure I can afford somewhere to live this summer.’

Leitner, along with two other SU magazine journalism juniors — Yelena Galstyan and Alexandra Fretts — received the scholarship to help fund living expenses for magazine internships in New York City. These scholarships, a first for the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, were made possible by a $100,000 gift from William Glavin, Newhouse’s longtime magazine professor who died last May from lung cancer.

The need-based Bill Glavin Endowed Internship Fund actsas a living tribute to Glavin’s love and devotion to students he would never have the chance to teach. The awards committee of current magazine professors — Aileen Gallagher, Harriet Brown, Mark Obbie, Ann Hettinger and Chessher — dubbed the scholarships ‘Glavin Grants.’

The Glavin Grants differ in amounts. The committee evaluated applicants by the need expressed in a personal statement, campus publication experience, writing samples, internship experience and Newhouse performance. Five students applied for a Glavin Grant, and winners were individually notified early last week.

Chessher, Glavin’s former colleague and longtime friend, admits not a day goes by where she doesn’t miss him, think of him or wish she could talk to him.

‘But at that time of year when I’m reminded of when he got sick and how truly terrible that was,’ she said, ‘I now have the pleasure of remembering his generosity and his dedication to the magazine department and the joy of notifying students who will benefit from that generosity and dedication.’

The committee gave out $4,000 this year, and next year it’ll likely have $10,000 to give.

‘It’s a gift that has the power to transform the department,’ Chessher said.

Nothing frustrated Glavin more than seeing a talented student forced to turn down an unpaid internship for financial reasons. Those situations are the inspiration for Glavin’s wish to help those in a similar bind, Chessher said. He thought publishing houses should compensate their interns, and he considered it criminal that some magazines not only refused to compensate interns, but also asked that they register and pay for the credit.

Semester after semester, he watched students who couldn’t commute from home or afford an apartment in the city turn down internships. Fretts was one such student. Glavin taught MAG 205:’Introduction to the Magazine’ during the first semester of her sophomore year.

Last summer, she, like many others, had to turn down an unpaid editorial internship. For her upcoming internship, the Glavin Grant ‘takes away some of the monetary burden that kept me from pursuing my career the first time around,’ Fretts said.

Galstyan, a staff writer for The Daily Orange, never had class with Glavin, although she planned to before he became sick. She had a casual, friendly relationship with him.

‘I was lucky enough to interview him for a story before he got ill,’ Galstyan said. ‘I’d come into his office and borrow magazines. His goal was to give students opportunities that they weren’t otherwise likely to obtain.’

The man who made these opportunities possible looked just like a professor ought to look. At the beginning of a semester, he’d peer over wireframe glasses and introduce himself in his deep, booming voice.

He’d glaze over his experience at the Boston Globe and Good Housekeeping, which he left to teach at Newhouse in 1973. But then his gaze would shift to his 20 new students. The students introduced themselves and where they were from, and gave their past journalism experiences. Glavin absorbed every detail; his eyes memorized every face, every name.

After class, Glavin walked outside to the plaza between the Newhouse buildings. He’d sit on the low, gray stone wall and light up a cigarette. Inhale deeply through the filter. Cough. Inhale again. He’d talk with passing students about Harry Potter, SU’s football team or their latest stories.

Although he’d never admit it, Glavin was an acclaimed professor. He won the Laura J. &L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence award in 1995 — the first Newhouse professor to receive this distinction. In 2008, Stacy Mindich, Glavin’s former student, donated $100,000 for the Glavin Magazine Lab. She also supports the department’s annual Benchmark Trip, called the Bill Glavin Magazine Trip,which funds a selected group of magazine journalism students for three days in New York City to meet with national magazine editors. 

But in March 2010, everyone’s fears became reality: Doctors diagnosed Glavin with lung cancer. He was already living with a rare blood cancer, Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, which was diagnosed four years prior. Seven weeks later, on May 7, 2010, Glavin died at Francis House in Syracuse at age 67.

‘It happened too fast. We knew he was sick, but the rate at which the disease progressed shocked us all. And then he was gone,’ said Rosanna Grassi, associate dean for student affairs at Newhouse.

A day before he died, the 2010 senior class delivered one final thank you: He was voted Teacher of the Year, an award accepted on his behalf by Chessher at Newhouse’s 2010 convocation.

Glavin taught three classes per semester for 37 years — a rarity among professors who typically teach five per year. In his signature green ink, he’d pen comments about adverbial sins, rhetorical questions and passive voice in the margins of students’ articles. Together, they’d dissect sentences, entering into his beloved vortex of vocabulary, syntax, grammar and diction. And when class ended, he walked to his favorite spot on the Newhouse plaza. He’d sit. Light up a cigarette. Inhale. Cough. Inhale again.

Now, nearly a year after his death, an inscription by Mark Twain — one of Glavin’s favorite authors — on a small memorial plaque replaces the man who sat there. It reads, ‘The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.’

And though his absence runs deep in the hearts of his former students, friends and colleagues, the Glavin Grants offer a joyful reminder that Chessher said ’embodies what a dedicated magazine professor and generous soul Bill Glavin was.’

pkhodapp@syr.edu

Published on April 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm