Garry Gilbert Email Address

Director and Adjunct Professor of Journalism

Oakland University is a top-rated academic institution in southeast Michigan offering 132 bachelor’s degree programs and 124 graduate degree and certificate programs.

Garry J. Gilbert is director of the journalism program at Oakland University. A student of the history of American journalism, Garry has B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oakland. He worked as a reporter, editor and executive director in print and online journalism for 30 years. In 1999, Garry established The Oakland Press Endowed Scholarship for Journalism Excellence for Oakland students. In 2000, the OU Alumni Association presented him with the university’s Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. Garry accepted an invitation to join the faculty at Michigan State University in 2006 as a visiting editor and lecturer. In 2007, he returned to Oakland as director of journalism. Garry served on the university’s host committee for the Republican Party’s nationally televised presidential candidate debate in 2011. In 2014, Garry and Holly Gilbert established the Gilbert Endowment for Safeguarding the Public Interest — a scholarship that will be available to any student in OU’s College of Arts & Sciences. Garry has earned multiple journalism honors, including a MORE Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and a first-place award from the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for a health-science article about a phenomenon called post-traumatic growth. His former students work for national organizations such as The New York Times, CBS Sports, The Guardian, CNN, Reuters, Facebook, the U.S. Coast Guard information office, and local media including The Detroit Free Press. Gilbert is a 20-year member of the board that oversees Oakland’s independent student newspaper, and he served as a trustee of the Oakland Alumni Association for 10 years. He is a past president of the Michigan Associated Press Editors Association and a former trustee of the Birmingham Unitarian Church.