Geske retires after decades of service to Iowa State University

Associate Professor Joel Geske retired from the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication on Dec. 31 after serving Iowa State University for 37 years.

Geske has been instrumental to the Greenlee School’s success and an inspiring teacher for nearly four decades, stewarding the school as a trusted source of leadership and institutional knowledge.

An early leader of the school’s diversity efforts, he helped lead the school to the 2014 Equity and Diversity Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He also has served on the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Diversity Committee and the Women’s and Gender Studies Steering Committee. Geske created the school’s online Diversity and Media course, which remains a popular LAS Cultures and Communities elective.

Of particular note are his combined 11 years as Greenlee’s associate director and two years as an Essman Faculty Fellow. He has received the LAS Institutional Service Award (2018), a Martin Luther King Jr. Building One Community Award (2013), and an LAS Diversity Award (2012).

“For 37 years, Dr. Geske has inspired students, supported colleagues and served the university,” said Tracy Lucht, professor and interim director of the Greenlee School. “He helped elevate the Greenlee School to national prominence while making Iowa State a more welcoming campus. Throughout it all, he put students at the center of his work. His influence will be felt for years to come through programs and courses he developed and a collegial culture he helped to build.”

Geske taught in the areas of advertising and creativity, diversity in the media and new technologies such as virtual and augmented reality. His main research track was exploring how the brain processes information related to visual communication and advertising. He has also done research on topics of diversity and visual communication.

Before coming home to his alma mater in 1988, Geske worked in the private sector and at advertising agencies.

Student evaluations of Geske’s teaching describe him as caring, helpful and committed.

“Joel has been such a wonderful mentor over the years,” shared former student Chelsea Julian Reynolds (’08, journalism and mass communication), founding director of the Center for Media & Communities at the ASU California Center and associate professor in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

She wrote the following about how Geske supported her not only at Iowa State but throughout her career:

“I first met him as a student at the Greenlee School in 2007, when I enrolled in his ethnicity, gender and media course. I’d had lots of opportunities for professional development at Iowa State, where I served the Meredith Apprentice Program and edited ETHOS magazine, but Joel’s course was the first time I connected the dots between media practice and media theory. His teaching illuminated the relationships between journalistic storytelling and systems of power, which became the foundation for my career as a magazine writer-turned-journalism professor. 

“Over the years, Joel has attended my AEJMC conference presentations and checked in with me regularly on Facebook, always supporting my research and teaching initiatives. I was always happy to see his smile and hear his hearty laugh during AEJMC’s LGBT Interest Group meetings, where we were both active members. When I started my Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism & Mass Communication in 2012, his daughter, Liz, was a cohort ahead of me. We often laughed about her dad’s antics and excitement about grandkids. 

“Truly, I wouldn’t be in my current role as director of Arizona State University’s Center for Media & Communities without Joel’s initial influence. He pushed me to be a stronger critic, a better writer and a braver person. He has made a tremendous impact on a generation of young media professionals, and I am lucky to count myself among his protégés.

“I wish Joel the best in retirement — I think of him often with deep gratitude.”