Manship School of Mass Communication Leads the Way in Media Diversity Education

September 17, 2008 — LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication is one of the top programs in the nation at producing versatile, industry-ready communicators for the U.S. work force, year after year. To go along with its rigorous curriculum of intense study and practice, the Manship School is taking its mission of building communications leaders one step further–by introducing the issue of media diversity into the program.

Only 35 percent of all journalism and mass communication higher education programs in the United States address topics of media diversity. LSU is changing that through the Forum on Media Diversity, a partnership of the Manship School of Mass Communication and its Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs. The Manship School is also working hard to establish a Chair in Diversity, Media and Public Affairs, and has secured lead gifts toward establishing this important position at LSU.

The Forum on Media Diversity is dedicated to national service as a source of information and scholarship about diversity in both higher education and professional journalism and mass communication.

One of the ways the Forum accomplishes this is through organizing formal discussions such as this summer’s “Diversity That Works” program, which featured an esteemed group of national participants discussing successful diversity efforts in student recruitment, faculty recruitment, curriculum development, and external programming for professional and academic research. The symposium was funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

While many Mass Communication programs across the country have yet to explore this area of study, LSU is serving as a model institution for providing resources and programming which will have an impact on both newsrooms and classrooms. Better mass communication and journalism education equates to more representative coverage. The result is more students, journalists, policy-makers and members of the public who are more aware of the needs and demands of fairness in the media.

“Part of the mission of our school is to promote diversity in higher education and the news media,” said Dean John Maxwell Hamilton of the Manship School. “A program such as this is so important, that we have committed to create a Chair in Diversity, Media & Public Affairs.”

This Chair would manage LSU’s national Forum on Media Diversity along with its Web site, www.masscommunicating.lsu.edu and develop courses on the subject for graduate students, many of whom are minorities. The Donna Guzman and Oliver G. “Rick” Richard, III Family Foundation, AT&T; Foundation, and AT&T Louisiana have made lead gifts to the project. William A. Oliver, president and CEO of AT&T Louisiana, is chairing the fundraising effort, which has reached its halfway mark. For more information please contact, Sara Courtney at 225-578-2418.

Programs like the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Forum on Media Diversity are supported through the Forever LSU Campaign. Forever LSU is a special fundraising effort aimed at preserving LSU’s Tier 1 status among American universities. With a goal of raising $750 million of support for LSU by the end of 2010, Forever LSU is our University’s most ambitious and important project ever. To find out how you can be LSU’s next hero by joining this historic effort to promote LSU, visit www.foreverlsu.org today.