February may be African-American History Month, during which academic units at Iowa State emphasize diversity and inclusion; but at the Greenlee School, the effort is year-round with the posting of the unit’s mid-year Diversity Report on a public web page dedicated to the unit’s commitment.
The report, assembled by members of the Undergraduate Committee’s Diversity Panel—chaired by Assistant Professor Tracy Lucht with faculty members Pauli Escobedo and Beth Haag—showcases 30 items, ranging from Awards and Recognition to Scholarship, Outreach, Service and Teaching, Mentoring, Advising.
In the Awards category, Lucht and Assistant Professor Amy Erica Smith, Political Science, were awarded a $5,000 Women’s and Diversity Grant to host the on-campus workshop “Strategies for Being Productive and Getting Recognized: Strengthening the Ranks of Women Faculty at ISU.” The workshop was led by Dr. Joy Gaston Gayles of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.
Several Greenlee faculty members had publications or presentations based on diversity scholarship. Associate Professor Joel Geske published the article “Riot vs. Revelry: News Bias through Visual Media” in Teaching Media Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 1: Teaching Black Lives Matter: Media, Race and Social Movements.
Michael Bugeja’s article “The Fuss,” about trigger warnings and microaggressions, was published by Inside Higher Ed. His presentation on the same topic was accepted for Iowa State’s iScore conference on March 1.
Lucht wrote two diversity-related articles for Clio, the History Division newsletter of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication: “Race, Representation, and the Practice of Journalism” and “Research Meets Recent Events: Harassment a Part of Women’s History in Broadcasting.”
The Greenlee School sponsored a public screening of Project Enye (ñ): A Voice for First–Generation Latinos between Two Worlds, on Oct. 13, 2016. The School also was a co-sponsor of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s public lecture “A Deeper Black: Race in America” on Jan. 30, 2017.
Greenlee is partnering with the ISU 4U Promise program. The goal of the promise program is to promote the college experience among students at Des Moines’ King and Moulton elementary schools. Students who complete fifth grade at King or Moulton elementary school will be eligible for tuition awards to Iowa State University. The goal of the school’s partnership with the program is to promote careers in advertising, journalism and mass communication and public relations and to help Iowa State’s recruitment of underrepresented students. The program dates are Feb. 16 and March 9.
In March, Greenlee will host Earnest Perry for a Research Friday. During his time at ISU, he will speak about his latest research on "Teaching History in the Age of Black Lives Matter: Embracing the Narratives of the Long Struggle for Civil Rights."
The Greenlee School will host journalist Joe Starita on campus in spring 2017. Starita has written three narrative non-fiction books about Native Americans, one nominated for a Pulitzer in history. His most recent book, A Warrior of the People, details Susan La Flesche, a Native woman from the Nebraska/Iowa area who was the first Native woman to complete medical school. He will give a campus-wide lecture, speak to journalism classes, and attend a luncheon for Greenlee faculty, staff, and students.
Several classes emphasize diversity and inclusion at the Greenlee School. In his Strategic Planning course, lecturer Bret Voorhees has made diversity and inclusion the “client.” In fall 2016, the class worked with the Iowa State Daily and Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion Reginald Stewart’s new office to assess the current “temperature” of diversity discussions on campus. The class proposed ways to present and message this important issue; the spring 2017 class is continuing this work.
Lecturer Lisa Munger Oakes’s new course, JLMC 414x: Digital Newsroom: Depth Reporting, will produce a half-semester-long project centered on the theme of giving “voice to the voiceless.”
To read the entire report, click here.
The Greenlee School won the national AEJMC Equity and Diversity Award in 2014 and remains dedicated to serving diverse audiences in the digital age.