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The Stanford University community is mourning the slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who graduated from the university in 1985. 

The U.S. State Department said Thursday that the missing journalist had been killed. He was reportedly kidnapped in late January while on an assignment in Pakistan.University President John Hennessy praised the Stanford alumnus. 

“Daniel's pursuit of truth -- even at his own peril -- represents the very highest values of a free press in a democratic society,” Hennessy said. 

Pearl, 38, graduated from Stanford with honors with a bachelor's degree in communication. He later worked at several newspapers in Massachusetts before joining the Wall Street Journal in November 1990. Kristine Samuelson, chair of the Department of Communication said, “We are devastated by the news of Danny Pearl's death. We are in the business of training young journalists to tell the world's stories and we've just lost one.” 

Communication professor Henry Breitrose, who served as department chair at the time Pearl declared his major, said he remembered a young man who was smart, motivated and a strong writer. 

“He had the ability to avoid the conventional wisdom in doing a story and to try and find an angle, something that would illuminate the story rather than follow the template or master narrative,” he said. He said he was not surprised that Pearl excelled in his journalism career. 

“What a good journalist does is find out what he or she is not supposed to know but what the public at large is supposed to know,” Breitrose said. "That's what Danny was doing.'' 

A memorial service for Pearl has been scheduled for Monday at 4 p.m. in Memorial Church on the Stanford campus.