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Dr. Lee B. Becker, director of the Cox International Center at the University of Georgia, at the 2014 AEJMC Annual Conference in Montreal, Canada. |
Journalism And Mass Communication Education Association Honors Cox Center Director
The Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication has recognized Dr. Lee B. Becker, director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the University of Georgia, for his research and service to journalism and mass communication education.
Dr. Ann Brill, ASJMC president-elect, presented Dr. Becker with an engraved award noting his “outstanding service to journalism and mass communication education” at a special session of the conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Montreal, Canada, on Aug. 6.
Dr. Becker, Dr. Tudor Vlad, associate director of the Cox International Center, and Holly Anne Simpson, a graduate student in the Center, had presented research findings earlier in the session from the Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication, which have been housed in the Cox Center since 1997.
The survey of a national sample of 2013 journalism and mass communication graduates found that the job market was static from a year earlier, indicating that the slight improvement in the market in recent years has stalled.
The census of journalism and mass communication programs around the United States found that enrollment had declined for the third year in a row.
Dr. Becker has conducted the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates since 1987 and the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments since 1988.
ASJMC agreed last year to assume responsibility for the surveys.
Dr. Brill is dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.
Approximately 40 people attended the session in Montreal, where Dr. Becker recounted the history of the survey projects. The first enrollment survey was conducted in 1934, while the first graduate survey was conducted in 1964.
A number of former graduate students and other researchers who had worked with Dr. Becker over the years attended the session and spoke of their experiences.
The surveys have been used in programming in the Cox International Center, which is a unit of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, during the time it was housed in the Cox Center.
The Center has worked with journalism and mass communication educators around the world, sharing expertise from the U.S.
Now that they have stopped gathering data on the journalism and mass communication labor market and the educational institutions linked to it, Drs. Becker and Vlad will focus on a book summarizing the findings from the project.
