Leonard Witt holds the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University and was named an Eminent Scholar by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia in 2008. Also in that year he received the university’s Distinguished Service Award. With substantial new funding from the Harnisch Foundation, he founded the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University, which in September, 2010 launched the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, JJIE.org , a trial project in community supported journalism. The Center’s mission is aimed at discovering innovative ways to produce financially sustainable, high quality and ethically sound journalism. Witt was a journalist for more than 25 years, including being editor of Sunday Magazine at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Minnesota Monthly magazine. Before entering academia in 2002, he was the executive director of the Minnesota Public Radio Civic Journalism Initiative.