on campus - Article - Manhattan College

Waking up to Jim Ryan ’60
Seasoned journalist Jim Ryan ’60 is
helping New Yorkers greet the day as
a recent member of the CBS morning
news team. Ryan, who viewers watched
for many years on FOX 5’s Good Day
New York, is now a special correspondent
for CBS 2 News This Morning.
Before joining CBS, Ryan spent 20
years anchoring Good Day New York,
since the show’s inception in 1988.
A well-respected journalist, Ryan began
his career in journalism at the Associated
Press (AP) and the New York Daily News.
In 1974, he joined WNBC, first as an
executive editor and later as an on-air
reporter. He was with WNBC until 1985,
when he joined Fox 5.
Ryan was ready to make the move
to CBS. Good Day wanted to take the
program in a new direction, says Ryan,
who worked out a deal to retire from
the show. Now he’s reunited with former
colleagues at CBS and is continuing to
have fun in the morning, he says.
Ryan was only 17 when he landed his
first news job with the AP, a job he held
as a full-time student at Manhattan.
While most students were focused on
homework or after-school activities, Ryan
had his eyes set on a career in journalism.
The Bronx native and commuter student
spent his days making it to early morning
classes in Riverdale and evenings at the
AP’s midtown Manhattan newsroom.
Manhattan College’s strength is that
it creates well-rounded, reality-based
engineering graduates who then go on
to improve conditions for humanity.
I’ve always felt that it’s not what you
know, but what you choose to do
with that knowledge that matters,”
Campbell says.
Campbell lives in Massachusetts with
her husband, Dave Sheppard, and their
son, Benjamin Sheppard, 8, whom they
adopted from Ukraine in 2002. And
apart from her career in engineering,
“I stole a lot of time from the AP to
study for Manhattan,” he says jokingly.
As a journalist, Ryan has had the
opportunity to serve as an “eyewitness
to history,” he says. The chance to report
on some of the most memorable moments
in history and the most influential people
through the years has held Ryan’s interest
in the field.
Reflecting on his early days as a young
reporter, Ryan tells the story of how he
met Martin Luther King Jr. King was in
the CBS building having an interview
with legendary broadcaster Walter
Cronkite. Ryan caught up with the civil
rights pioneer as he was exiting the
building. That chance meeting and short
conversation with King turned into
Ryan’s first AP byline.
In journalism, “you have the opportunity
to talk to people who made history and
be there when it happened,” says Ryan,
who still enjoys the excitement of a
newsroom and the unexpected nature
of the job.
Ryan each year hosts the College’s
annual De La Salle Medal Dinner, which
is its most important fund-raising event.
And each time, he doesn’t disappoint
with his clever sense of humor and witty
remarks. For Ryan, one of the most
memorable Manhattan moments, however,
is when he was invited back to campus
she has another passion: the stage. Her
love for the theater world — nourished
at Manhattan with the Manhattan
College Players — stuck with her, and
in 1992, Campbell and her husband
founded Acme Theater Productions, now
based in Maynard, Mass. The group has
won many amateur awards and travels
across the United States and Canada
to perform at festivals.
“It was important to me then, and
continues to be important to me now, to
maintain a creative outlet,” Campbell says.
to deliver the 2001 commencement
address and was awarded an honorary
doctorate degree. It was a great moment
for him to speak to the graduates and
meet the many proud parents.
“That was a very exciting and meaningful
thing for me because I saw myself in
their faces and in their experiences,”
Ryan says. He could tell that for the
students it “was truly a commencement
in their life,” and for Ryan, it was his
proudest moment at Manhattan College.
Jim Ryan ’60 at the 2001
Commencement ceremony.
But whether at work or at play,
Campbell is making a difference —
and the Boston area is a cleaner,
healthier place because of it.
“I feel that my single proudest
accomplishment is that every day my
work matters,” she says. “To the clients
who rely on my advice to make business
decisions, to people who currently live
in these communities and for future
generations who will breathe clean air,
drink clean water, and have a safer,
greener environment to live in tomorrow.”
manhattan.edu
alumnotes
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