Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, from Rochester, was one of seven alumni who were inducted into the 2024 Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement at Northwestern University, May 9.
This is the highest honor Medill bestows on its graduates. Franchetti offered brief remarks at the ceremony reflecting on her time at Medill and what this award means to her.
She said, “When I arrived here on campus back in September of 1981, I was ready to pursue my dream of becoming a journalist. And then a funny thing happened. I was walking around doing that check-in sheet that we had to do during freshman orientation week, and I was coming back from Patten gym and I was walking down the other side of the road, and there were some people playing football – throwing a football around in a parking lot right across from [tech]. So I stopped by to talk to them, and I asked them what they were doing, and they were NROTC students. They said they were going to be in the Navy and Marine Corps, and oh, by the way, they can give me a $100 a month, free books, and probably a scholarship. I thought, as one of six kids that sounded like a really good thing.“So I signed up on the spot. I got those free books, I got free tuition, and I got that scholarship that I really, really needed. So, it is kind of funny 38 years later, I’m now standing here as the chief of naval operations.
And I think that’s in large part thanks to what I learned here at Northwestern and at Medill.”
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