Annenberg School Honored for Progressive Achievements

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication has awarded the Equity and Diversity award to the Annenberg School of Journalism for their commitment to diversity and community outreach.

Annenberg's Dean Ernest J. Wilson III and School of Journalism Director Geneva Overholser will be accepting the 2012 AEJMC Equity and Diversity Award from Kyu Ho Yoam, president of the Associated for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication as well as professor and holder of the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. The award celebrates the Journalism school's achievements in curriculum, programming and community journalism news organizations. 

"Our journalism program puts diversity issues at the very front of our commitment to educate the next generation of journalists, and there is a number of ways we're trying to do this," said Dean Wilson. "One is that our faculty has been working on a program that we call 'Fault Line', where we brought in an external facilitator from Northern California to help our faculty think about how in American and global society there are fault lines in gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and race that are very important in modern life around the world."

The AEJMC selection committee stated that Annenberg's Diversity Initiative report, "Celebrating the Difference," offers a blueprint for other U.S. journalism and mass communication schools. 

"The faculty discussions are being translated into a revision of our curriculum. We are redoing our graduate curriculum this year and then next year our undergraduate curriculum so that there are more opportunities for our students to understand and learn how to write about it and report on these important differences," explained Wilson. 

Wilson said that the School wants all their students to be culturally competent, having the ability to cover stories with understanding and sensitivity.

"We are lucky to live in a very diverse community here in South Central, in a city like Los Angeles which is probably the most global and diverse city in the United States," said Wilson."We have a number of programs working in Alhambra and in the local community right around the university to give our students the chance to go out and report on a wide range of things going on in Los Angeles."

The AEJMC Equity and Diversity award is the fourth major AEJMC award the school has received.

"My pride in tonight's event is that it is a national recognition of the tremendous work that our faculty has done to bring diversity to the center of the Annenberg School and make it an important part of who we are and what we do," stated Wilson. 

In addition to the award presentation, Director Overholser was going to conduct an interactive discussion on "Diversity in the 21st Century" and how coverage of multicultural America is growing, however, the event has been cancelled.