Culpepper (Cully) Clark is the former dean of the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. From 1996 to 2006, he was dean of the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama.
Clark joined the University of Alabama in 1971 as an assistant professor of speech communication and associate director of forensics. Later he served as director of forensics and was chair of the department of speech communication before becoming executive assistant to the president in 1990. He was chair of the department of communication studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 1979 to 1986, and chair of the communication department at Georgia State University in 1986-1987.
Clark was a founder and general editor of the University of Alabama Press’s Studies in Rhetoric and Communication series and has been on the editorial boards of numerous journals. He has supervised and conducted interviews for seven oral history projects dealing with aspects of Alabama history and culture. He has served on the Alabama Humanities Foundation and the Alabama Historical Commission and was a founding member and officer of Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform.
Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha honorary forensics society has presented him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award (1996) and named him Speaker of the Year (2004). He has received the University of Alabama’s E. Roger Sayers Distinguished Service Award (2001), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Community Service Award (1992), and the Southern States Communication Association Outreach Award (1995). He also has an honorary doctoral degree from Aquinas College.
Clark earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Emory University and a doctorate in history from the University of North Carolina. He is the author of The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at the University of Alabama.