Journalism professor Dwight L. Teeter passed away Friday morning, according to Dean of College of Communication and Information Michael Wirth. He was 80 years old.

“It’s a very sad day,” Wirth said. “Dwight was a great man, a great colleague, a great academic. He was a tremendous teacher. It’s a huge loss.”

Teeter came to the University of Tennessee as Dean of CCI in 1991, and he served in that role until 2002. He then taught media law and other journalism courses before retiring in December of 2014.

His colleagues remember him as someone who was always willing to mentor students and co-author books with younger scholars. One of his most notable books is “Law of Mass Communications,” which he co-authored in 1969 with his mentor, the late Professor Harold L. Nelson of the University of Wisconsin, published in 2004. The book is now in its 11th edition.

Teeter received many accolades over his long career, including being named a Society of Professional Journalists Distinguished Teacher in 1991. In 2005, he was awarded the College of Communication and Information’s Distinguished Research Award.

He is also regarded as a leading First Amendment scholar in the U.S., according to fellow journalism professor Ed Caudill.

Caudill, a journalism professor who worked with Teeter for more than 25 years, shared an office with him on the fourth floor of the Communications Building. They also frequently went trout fishing, and Caudill’s son Rob joined him for lunches of Teeter’s favorite: Mexican food.

“He loved Mexican food, dirty jokes, fly fishing and the First Amendment,” Caudill laughed. “Not necessarily in that order.”

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made. Teeter had two sons and a daughter. He and his wife, who died a few years ago, were married more than fifty years.