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Media Relations
Kansas State University
9 Anderson Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-6415
media@k-state.edu

Information provided by K-State Media Relations, K-State's news service, may be reproduced without permission. The marks and names of Kansas State University are protected trademarks and may not be used in any commercial or private endeavor without the approval of the university.

Source: Angela M. Powers, 785-532-3963

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

LOUISE BENJAMIN TO JOIN K-STATE'S A.Q. MILLER SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATIONS

MANHATTAN -- A former television director/producer is joining the Kansas State University faculty in August to teach graduate and undergraduate courses in journalism and digital media. The A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications has appointed Louise Benjamin as the new Ross Beach Chair for Mass Communications.

Angela M. Powers, director of the Miller School, said Benjamin also will coordinate activities between the Miller School and the Educational Communications Center on campus.

Benjamin is currently an associate professor in the department of telecommunications at the University of Georgia and taught at Indiana University after receiving her Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Iowa in 1985.

Benjamin is a former television director/producer and teaches introductory classes to telecommunications, broadcast writing, electronic media history, and telecommunications law and policy. She has received several department and university-wide teaching awards from both the University of Georgia and Indiana University. From 1993 to 2002 she was the associate director of the prestigious Peabody Awards housed at the University of Georgia and served as interim director in 2000 and 2001.

Benjamin has presented and published numerous papers, articles, book reviews, and book chapters on broadcast history and telecommunications policy development. Her book, "Freedom of Expression and the Public Interest: First Amendment Rights in Broadcasting to 1935," won the 2002 Franklyn S. Haiman Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Freedom of Expression from the National Communication Association. Another book on early radio, "The NBC Advisory Council and Radio Program Development, 1926-1945," will be published in 2009 by Southern Illinois University Press.

She serves on the steering committee for the Radio Hall of Fame at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago and is the book review editor for the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.

She has just completed a four-year term as chair of the Festival Committee of the Broadcast Education Association. She has held office in four major professional organizations –- the Association for Education
in Journalism and Mass Communication, the Broadcast Education Association, the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association. She has also served on the Library of American Broadcasting Academic Advisory Board at the University of Maryland in College Park and the Historic Preservation and Archives Committee of the American Journalism Historians Association.

The Ross Beach Chair for Mass Communications was established in 1989 with a donation from Marianna K. and Ross Beach. The endowment enables K-State to provide augmentation and salary to assure recruitment and retention of a teaching and research leader in the area of mass communications. The position was formerly held by Tom Grimes who left for a position at Texas State University.