Merrill Rose (1955-2020)
UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media alumna, faculty member and longtime board member Merrill Rose died January 28, 2020 in New York City.
Rose led the recent transformation of the NC Media & Journalism Hall of Fame to elevate its stature, better recognize professional achievement of industry leaders with ties to North Carolina and create meaningful interactions among the honorees and current UNC Hussman students. She helped establish the annual Halls of Fame event as benefit supporting the school’s students and faculty.
Rose returned to Chapel Hill often to teach public relations courses, to serve as a mentor to students and a resource the school’s faculty and administration. A year ago, she served as the school’s Edward L. Rankin Visiting Professor.
"When Merrill spoke faculty, students and colleagues listened. She was forceful and in a disarming way. Her ideas and suggestions were always just right and always persuasive," said Susan King, dean of UNC Hussman.
"She may have lived in Manhattan for dozens of years but her Southern upbringing meant that she seemed always to have time to talk, to pause, and to enjoy a story. She was never rushed. There is a sadness that stretches down the east coast — in all the places she called home."
------------------------
New York, NY: Merrill Rose, 64, died January 28, 2020. She was born April 20, 1955 in Beaufort, N.C., to the late Betty Lou Merrill Rose and Robert Lloyd Rose. Survivors include her brother, Robert Lloyd Rose, Jr. of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. and stepbrother, Gordon Walker Ellis of Canandagua, N.Y.
Rose grew up in Ft. Lauderdale and was a 1977 graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
After initial work as a consumer reporter and as assistant editor of the Washington Journalism Review, she joined Porter Novelli, an international public relations firm, in 1982. In her 18 years with the firm, Rose served as a national practice leader, as general manager of the firm’s Chicago office, and as director-Europe, based in Brussels, Belgium. She then became the firm’s executive vice president.
Rose directed a variety of groundbreaking campaigns at Porter Novelli, including the first national health promotion program targeting older people (for the U.S. Public Health Service), and the first national campaign promoting low-fat diets (for the Kaiser Family Foundation).
In 1995, Inside PR Magazine named Rose a “Public Relations All-Star.” In 1999, she was inducted into the North Carolina Media & Journalism Hall of Fame. In 2000, Rose started her own communications consulting practice specializing in advising nonprofit organizations. A treasured client was the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. She was named the Edward L. Rankin Visiting Professor in public relations at UNC in 2018.
She served on the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Board of Advisers and the National Accrediting Committee of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She was a board member of CARE and of On-Site Opera; and was a member of the Fairfield County chapter of Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.
Rose divided her time between New York and her beloved North Carolina—Beaufort, Chapel Hill and Southern Pines. In 1999 she purchased a dramatic yet whimsical apartment in a stately building on Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village, the perfect location for the parties she loved to throw—including “Dog Days in the Leopard Lounge” on Wednesday evenings in August.
In a 2013 New York Times profile, the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, after a visit to a Dog Days party, pronounced her apartment “kooky.”
In an oral history archived at the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, she said of her early departure from corporate life and entry into a new life of consulting, traveling, Kappa reunion organizing and academia, “There is a time in life when you say, ‘Why do I have to live the same way? When I realize it’s actually more comfortable to make the risky choice.’”
In lieu of flowers, please make donations in her name to one of the following organizations: UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media http://giving.unc.edu/gift/hussman On-Site Opera https://osopera.org/support/ CARE https://www.care.org/ways-to-give or Manhattan Theatre Club https://www.manhattantheatreclub.com