Media Hall of Fame - Peter B. Orlik

Peter B. Orlik, 1976, was a founder and a member of the Broadcast and Cinematic Arts faculty from 1969 to 2017. Orlik, a native of Hancock, Michigan, and doctoral graduate of Wayne State University’s mass communications program, was selected as one of six 2024 honorees who have distinguished themselves in their professions. He spent 48 years serving as a CMU faculty member and building its award-winning School of Broadcast and Cinematic Arts before retiring in 2017. It was a journey that took him from the Detroit area to CMU, where he provided the type of training that helped students become media giants.

“By the time I was in high school, our family had relocated to Berkley in the Detroit area. I played clarinet in our school band and then attended Wayne State on a symphony scholarship with a mass communication major,” recalled Orlik. “I interned at Campbell Ewald advertising agency in Detroit, which worked out very well, but I wanted to attend graduate school and was offered a professorship. I finished my doctorate while at Wayne in the fall of 1969 and was hired by Wilbur Moore at CMU to put together a broadcast program. The summer after he hired me, Moore retired.”

Orlik spent the first week of his new job at CMU meeting with 10 new faculty members. There was much to do.

“When I came in, the department had three programs in Communication Disorders, Speech Communication, and Theater, and they placed our new broadcast program in the Theater Arts sub-area. I taught half broadcasting and half oral interpretation. By the late 1970s, we were by far the largest area within the department,” he said. “We had a huge growth in majors, so much so that we became a self-standing area and reported to a vice provost. We then transitioned from a separate area within Speech and Dramatic Arts to an independent department and then a comprehensive school. After heading up the program for the first decade, I transitioned to teaching for 17 years and then came back as chair in 1996 until I retired in 2017.”

As the program grew within Moore Hall, Orlik’s approach to working with students remained focused on ensuring that they were prepared to get out and do the job.

“I really didn’t care all that much about what my students thought of me at that time, but what they would think of me five, six, and seven years out,” he said. “My students also taught me things that I just wouldn’t think of, which enabled some fabulous exercises. I also learned so much about how some students had to cope with other life issues and how they would deal with them.”

Many of Orlik’s students came from small towns and went on to do big things. Some students “know they want to study but don’t have the high school classes they need to learn.”

“I told them it really doesn’t matter what school you came from. It’s what you’ll do when you get here,” he said. “Brett Holey came from a tiny town in Ohio and now he’s Senior Director of NBC News.”

In 2003, Orlik was inducted into the Michigan Broadcasting Hall of Fame and is the author of five textbooks. Now that he’s retired, he has returned to his first love, the clarinet, and plays in a local band.