Forum Chairman Donates $1M To Moorhead University

MOORHEAD, Minn. (AP) — Forum Communications Co. Chairman William Marcil has donated $1 million toward a new journalism education initiative at Minnesota State University Moorhead, the school announced Friday.

Marcil is the fourth-generation family owner of the media company that owns The Forum and other newspapers, as well as radio and television stations in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota.

The gift will establish the William C. and Jane B. Marcil Center for Innovative Journalism and will cover curriculum and technology upgrades to better prepare students for jobs after graduation, the school said.

The Forum reports that in announcing the gift at a campus event, MSUM President Edna Szymanski acknowledged a longstanding "symbiotic relationship" between the school's mass communication department and Forum Communications.

The center will be a place for students, faculty and working professionals to collaborate "side-by-side on how to prepare new generations of journalists," she said.

William Marcil called it "an opportunity to get into a new phase of training journalists."

The Marcil family earlier made donations to North Dakota State University, Concordia College and the University of North Dakota.

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