About Dean Chessher
Professor Melissa Chessher, Dean of Honors & Scholars, joined SMU in 2022 as the Belo Foundation Endowed Distinguished Chair of Journalism, following her role as an associate dean at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Professor Chessher has earned numerous teaching honors, including Syracuse University's Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorship for Teaching Excellence — the university's highest teaching recognition — the Newhouse School's Senior Class Award for Teaching Excellence, and the Empire State Scholastic Press Association's Advisor of the Year award. For more than a decade, she served as a member of the core faculty for SU’s Renée Crown University Honors Program, teaching courses and advising more than 40 capstone projects.
With more than 20 years of experience in the magazine industry as a writer and editor, she contributed to the launch of Real Simple, the largest magazine launch in Time Inc. history, and Gusto, a healthy-living magazine for Latin American women, also from Time Inc. Her work has appeared in more than a dozen national publications, including Glamour, Allure, Marie Claire, Outside, Health, Self, Fitness, Men's Health, and Parents. Her writing spans travel narratives, deeply reported health features, personal essays, and cultural coverage of food, wine, art, and architecture. In 2016, Folio magazine named her one of its Top Women in Media.
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