Nov. 4, 2003

GW Launches Task Force to Look at the Future of the School of Media and Public Affairs

The George Washington University has set up a committee, the Task Force on the Future of the School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA), to look at the accomplishments of the school and help chart a course for its future. The task force includes prominent Washington journalists, media executives, political experts and GW faculty.

The committee consists of Robin Sproul, vice president and Washington bureau chief for ABC News, Chris Schroeder, chief executive officer and publisher of Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive; Steve Roberts, GW Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs; Tara Connell, vice president of corporate communications for Gannett Co., Inc.; Stephen Hess, senior fellow at the governance studies program at The Brookings Institution; Berl Brechner, owner and operator of two small market TV stations — both ABC network affiliates — a radio station and an outdoor advertising company; Paul Wilson, founder and chair of Wilson Grand Communications; Jarol Manheim, GW professor of media and public affairs; Patricia Phalen, GW associate professor of media and public affairs; Ivan Roman, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists; and John Barth, former editorial director of the Public Radio Collaboration project called “Whose Democracy Is It?” The task force will be chaired by Lee Sigelman, former chair of the political science department at GW.

“President [Stephen Joel] Trachtenberg and I believe the school, with its Washington, DC, location, its interdisciplinary approach and its spectacular facility is poised to become nationally prominent,” said Donald R. Lehman, executive vice president for academic affairs. “In line with GW’s newly adopted strategic plan, I am asking the task force to develop a set of strategic recommendations that will enhance the academic experience for students and that will enable the school to prepare GW students to be critical decision-makers in media and politics during the coming decades.”

The school was formed in the early 1990s as the National Center for Communication Studies and renamed the School of Media and Public Affairs in 1995. The school offers programs of undergraduate study in electronic media, journalism and political communication and in 1998, SMPA began offering a master’s degree in media and public affairs. The undergraduate programs center on the intersection of media and politics and incorporate theory and practice, while the graduate program is primarily theoretical.

Currently, SMPA is seeking a new leader. In July of this year, Jean Folkerts, who had been director of the school since 1996, left her position to become GW’s associate vice president for special academic initiatives.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu

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School of Media and Public Affairs