Ken Bode Started his Amazing Career at the University of South Dakota

The experiences and education offered by University of South Dakota (USD) provided springboards for hundreds of students to achieve world class accomplishments. One such student who took full advantage of USD was Ken Adlam Bode, from Hawarden, Iowa. According to the Coyote yearbook Bode attended USD majored in political science and philosophy, and graduated in 1961.

While at USD, Bode held several leadership roles as president of Dakotans, the Student Association, Omicron Delta Kappa (an honorary society for seniors exhibiting scholarship, leadership, and service), the Forensic Union, and as vice president of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. The May 9, 1961, Volante, reported that Bode received the Province 11 award for his leadership role in the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. He was only one of 26 student leaders in the country to receive such an honor. Other academic societies that Bode was elected to include the honorary political society, Phi Sigma Alpha, Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities, and Phi Beta Kappa.

An article in the February 21, 1961, Volante, stated this: “Ken Bode is one of the hardest working guys this campus has seen in a long time. Anyone who knows Ken is aware that he does not like apathy in the student body. He never asks more of his coworkers than he is willing to do himself. As president of Student Senate last semester, he was instrumental in making the organization a powerful functioning organization.  The article goes on to state: “Right now, he is in Pierre fighting for the education building. Anything that involves SUSD (renamed USD), involves Ken.”

What happened to Ken Bode when he graduated from the University? Ken Bode went on to receive a M.A. in 1963 and in 1966 a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina. He then taught at Michigan State University and State University of New York at Binghamton.  He had a post-doctoral fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and was a Poynter Fellow in journalism at Yale University. Other academic positions Bode held included at DePauw University as the John D. Hughes University Professor and director of the University’s Ubben Lecture Series and later he became Dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism (https://www.ijhf.org/members/2005/ken-bode, accessed December 11, 2023).

Ken Bode was also a prolific writer and political editor of The New Republic Magazine.  He served as political correspondent for CNN news, NBC News, including Nightly News, the Today Show, and Meet the Press. From 1994-1999 at PBS Ken Bode reported the news at PBS and was a well-respected host of Washington Week in Review.

Ken Bode died in 2022 at age 83. An obituary in the New York Times published on June 8, 2022, called him “a bearded, bearish former political operative and television correspondence who armed with a Ph.D. in politics” who went on to major accomplishments in education, scholarship, politics, journalism, and media.  Ken Bode got his start as an amazingly accomplished, active, and well-respected student at the University of South Dakota.

Ken Bode in the Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities section of the 1961 Coyote yearbook.