McAllister Fellowship

The McAllister Editorial Fellowship and the McAllister Top Management Fellowship are awarded annually to an editor and an executive, respectively. These fellowships promote the study of business media, with McAllister Fellows acting as teachers and advisors for approximately one week on the Medill Magazine Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. McAllister Fellows receive a crystal bowl and an honorarium.

The fellowships are endowed by Mr. and Mrs. Donald McAllister, Jr.; Ms. Liane E. McAllister; and Geyer-McAllister Publications, in honor of the late Donald McAllister, Sr., and are administered through the Business Press Educational Foundation (BPEF).

There is not an application process for the McAllister Fellowships; winners are selected from the Neal Awards finalists each year.

About the Fellowship

Donald McAllister, Sr. was American Business Media's chairman in 1955. He was an active figure in specialized business media for over 70 years until his death in 1993, at the age of 91. He was chairman of the executive committee at Geyer-McAllister, one of the country's oldest family-owned publishing firms until its magazines' sale to Reed Business Information in 1998.

McAllister's background in editorial began at Cornell University, where, as an English major, he edited The Cornell Window, one of the Ivy League's leading literary humor magazines. While at Cornell, he wrote an article about a local gift shop for a new magazine, The Gift and Art Shop, published by a company owned by his uncle, Andrew Geyer. His first job at the company was as assistant editor for that magazine, which today is Gifts & Decorative Accessories.

In 1983, McAllister endowed an essay contest at Cornell's Johnson School of Business to stimulate excellence in writing. In 1992, in honor of his 70th reunion at Cornell, he created a fund to stimulate business marketing activities at the Johnson School. McAllister later extended his academic affiliations to become a member of the Specialized Business Press Advisory Board at New York University's Gallatin Division.

Past Recipients