A retirement reception for Rick Alloway, associate professor and 90.3 KRNU general manager and Laurie Thomas Lee, professor of broadcasting, is on April 23 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Meier Studio, located on the second floor of Andersen Hall. Barney McCoy, who retired as professor emeritus in December 2025, will also be celebrated at the reception but is no longer able to attend.
The reception is free and open to the public. Remarks are scheduled for 5 p.m.
Alloway graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Journalism in 1977 and earned a Master of Arts in Journalism, also from UNL, in 2002. He began teaching broadcasting courses as an adjunct at the J School throughout the late 70's and early 80’s. He became a full-time faculty member and KRNU’s station manager in 1986, one year after Journalism and Mass Communications establishment as a college.
In his 40 years at the university, Alloway has taught courses in audio production, media writing, content creation, podcasting and vocal performance for electronic media. He also taught the college's sports broadcasting course for 30 years and was a member of the steering committee that developed the sports media and communication major.
Since 1995, Alloway has produced and hosted Vocal Chords—an a cappella and vocal music program and webcast—on 90.3 KRNU and is the creator and host of Campus Voices, the station's weekly half-hour public affairs series. For over 25 years, he served as host of a monthly statewide radio call-in show with Nebraska's governor on behalf of the Nebraska Broadcasters Association (NBA), and in 2023, he was presented with the organization's Chairman's Award in recognition of his years of hosting. In 2022, the NBA recognized Alloway for his career and service to the broadcasting industry by inducting him into its Hall of Fame.
Alloway has been on a number of university committees, including the Faculty Senate, where he served as secretary of the executive committee twice, and he is a former board member of the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association. He was honored with the university's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006 and 2026 and is a 28-time recipient of the UNL Family & Friends Recognition Award.
Lee has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate media courses at UNL since joining the College of Journalism and Mass Communications faculty in 1992, where she’s also served as the faculty advisor for the Nebraska Broadcasting Society student club.
Lee has been teaching college-level courses in videography/cinematography, television studio production, digital motion graphics, media law, ethics and communication design since the early 1980's. She holds a Ph.D. in Mass Media from Michigan State University, an M.A. in Communications from the University of Iowa and a B.S. in Telecommunications from Kearney State College.
Her research focused on media law and media economics, particularly on privacy and new technology, and has been published in numerous academic and law review journals. She’s also published several book chapters and is an author of the textbook Communication Law: Practical Applications in the Digital Age, 3rd edition.
Locally, she serves on the Telecommunications/Cable Advisory Board and as president of the Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska. She previously served as president of the ACLU of Nebraska and Bright Lights. Nationally, she was on the board of the National Cable Telecommunications Association Academic Seminar and was formerly head of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Communications Technology and Policy Division. She's also served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Media Economics and the Southwestern Mass Communication Journal.
McCoy retired as professor emeritus in December 2025 after nearly two decades of teaching and creative work at the CoJMC. He joined the college in 2006 after a 27-year career as a broadcast journalist and taught courses in news literacy, multimedia, broadcast news, journalism, documentary and depth reporting.
He has also conducted national surveys on digital distraction in college classrooms and the results have been downloaded 69,000+ times by more than 4,200 institutions in 182 countries.
McCoy holds a master’s degree in telecommunications management from Michigan State University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. He also served as a visiting professor at the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Communication in Prishtina, Kosovo, from 2006 to 2010.
His creative work has been honored with national and regional awards, including six Emmys and multiple honors from the Broadcast Education Association and the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association. His documentaries have aired on public television and earned recognition from numerous film festivals.
In 2025, his documentary “Running Towards the Fire: A War Correspondent’s Story” received the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. The film chronicles the life of Omaha-born Reuters war correspondent Robert Reuben and was produced in partnership with Nebraska Public Media.
McCoy’s earlier films include “Black Jack Pershing: Love and War,” winner of a 2018 national Sigma Delta Chi Award, as well as “Seven Years a Correspondent,” “Exploring the Wild Kingdom” and “They Could Really Play the Game: Reloaded.”
