Below are two AEJMC (Chicago) panels that need additional panelists. Please let me know if you are interested or know of someone who might want to serve on the panel. Thank you in advance! 

DEARTH OF DIVERSITY: Concerns in U.S. Journalism & Mass Communication Programs and Effects on TV Newsrooms 

COD - Teaching

Sponsor: EEND   

Co-sponsor: MACD - Minorities and Communication

Session summary

In a recent Washington Post article, University of Pennsylvania professor 

Marybeth Gasman lamented the lack of diverse faculty members in 

American universities. Put bluntly, Gasman said, “The reason we don’t 

have more faculty of color among college faculty is that we don’t want 

them. We simply don’t want them.” Gasman described five key reasons 

why faculty of color aren’t desired, or hired. The problem intensifies in 

many Journalism and Mass Communication programs, especially those 

with intensive, industry-based skills components where the absence of 

diverse faculty members likely correlates with the low numbers of diverse 

news workers. If we look around our own programs, large and small, 

teaching or research-centric, we can see how often former industry 

practitioners are called upon to teach the next generation. What socio-

cultural forces are at work that contribute to this problem? How does the 

long-standing, well-documented reality of social reproduction (also 

common in newsrooms) exacerbate the problem to create a perfect storm. 

Panelists address the problem head on and describe potential pathways 

for overcoming personal and institutional biases.

Moderator

Lillian Williams , Columbia College Chicago

Potential panelists

George Daniels, University of Alabama

MAC Member #2 , 

Laura Smith, South Carolina 

Ava Greenwell, Loyola Chicago 

Other END Member

Sponsor: LGBT - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer

Co-sponsor: MACD - Minorities and Communication

Wednesday, Aug. 9, 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.

In the program: Listed in program

Listed as 'tip' in program: Listed as Tip

 

Panel Description:  Hiring minority faculty often brings diversity to research and creative and professional work, but diverse faculty are also able to bring unique perspectives to the classroom. These perspectives can bring challenges and opportunities not only for the students but also the diverse faculty themselves. This teaching panel aims to offer a forum for panelists to share their experience as minority faculty from this perspective. The panel will address topics such as the challenges, as well as the opportunities, of being a minority professor in the classroom and academic work setting, the impact it has on research and creative work, and the resulting effects that these teaching dynamics have on our professional areas across mass communication. 

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