A history of excellence: Poynter Institute's new president combines background in journalism, experience in academe to lead premier training center to greater heights.

PONTE VEDRA, FLA.

Like many high-achieving African Americans, Dr. Karen Brown Dunlap was warned repeatedly as a child growing up in the South that she had to work twice as hard and be twice as good--"not as good, but better than"--her White counterparts in all her endeavors.

As the new president of The Poynter Institute, journalism's premier training center, Dunlap has reached and surpassed the expectations of the elders who urged her to "be better."

Poynter's mission statement describes the nonprofit institution in St. Petersburg, Fla., as "a school for journalists, future journalists and teachers of journalism ... our students come here in a search for excellence."

That quest will take them to the door of a 52-year-old mother and grandmother who began her career, not in the frenetic newsroom of a metropolitan daily but at a Black weekly in rural Georgia. Poynter's new president examined the history of the Black press in Tennessee for her doctoral dissertation and spent 10 years teaching at a Black university.

As the chief executive of Poynter, which owns the St. Petersburg Times, Dunlap is also on the board of directors of the Times Publishing Company. In these leadership positions, she is now one of the most influential …