Web site: http://www.auburn.edu/~willik5/

Professor Ed Williams has been on Auburn University’s journalism faculty since 1983.  He follows in the footsteps of founding journalism department head Jack Simms in teaching the infamous introductory course, Journalism 1100 (Newspaper Fundamentals).

Students still are required to memorize Strunk and White’s Rule 17, “Omit Needless Words,” and learn “the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.”

He also serves as the journalism internship supervisor.

Most of Williams' newspaper experience is in community journalism, a career that took him to two weekly and two daily newspapers -- The South Alabamian in Jackson, The Montgomery Advertiser, The Brewton Standard and The Andalusia Star-News -- before joining the Auburn faculty in 1983.

He also assists with projects for the Alabama Press Association and wrote a book, "The Press of Alabama: A History of the Alabama Press Association," to commemorate the press association's 125th anniversary in 1996.

Williams served 23 years as the faculty adviser of The Auburn Plainsman, the award-winning campus newspaper that is published each Thursday.  He stepped down as faculty adviser after spring 2008.  At the time of Williams’ retirement from The Plainsman, he announced establishment of The King Edsel (Ed) Williams Jr. Endowed Scholarship in Journalism that will be awarded each year to a journalism student who works at The Auburn Plainsman.

Williams was chosen recipient of the College Media Advisers’ 2008 Distinguished Adviser Award.  The CMA award is a national award given to advisers who have provided exemplary service to their institutions and students who also subscribe to and operate under the CMA Code of Ethics.

The Plainsman, recognized nationally as one of the top college newspapers in the United States, had received 23 Pacemaker Awards.  The Pacemaker is the college newspaper equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.

During his days as Plainsman adviser, Williams liked to calling winning the Pacemaker “the sports equivalent of a national championship college football team.”

Williams was awarded the 2008 Auburn Alumni Association Undergraduate Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. The award is given to teachers who are exceptional in their quality of teaching, knowledge of subject, interest in students and availability to them, and influence within Auburn University.

He is a charter member of the Academy of Teaching and Outstanding Teachers.  The College of Liberal Arts established the Academy in 2003 to recognize the career teaching achievements of top professors.

Williams received his bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama.

He plans the annual Auburn Plainsman-Journalism open house and reunion held each fall at a home football game.