Academics

Communications dean elected to leadership role with AEJMC

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State College of Communications Dean Marie Hardin was elected vice president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). She will serve as vice president before becoming the AEJMC president for 2018-19.

“I’m grateful for the chance to help lead an organization that has been essential to my development and success,” said Hardin. “I'll be working with people I admire on projects that will move us ahead. That feels great.”

Hardin was named dean of the College of Communications in July 2014. She joined Penn State’s faculty in 2003, and previously served as associate dean for undergraduate and graduate education, capping levels of responsibility that grew regularly during her tenure at the University.

The College of Communications is the largest accredited mass communications program in the nation, offering four undergraduate majors — advertising/public relations, film-video, journalism, media studies and telecommunications. In the past two years, Hardin has led the expansion of opportunities for students, including the creation of the Penn State Hollywood Program and an expansion of "embedded programs" that offer international opportunities for students in each of the five majors. In a professional college, with practical experience at a premium, students complete nearly 600 for-credit internships every year and perform well in national competitions.

Hardin ranks as a respected and sought-after expert on communications-related topics, including issues of diversity, ethics and professionalism in sports journalism. She is author of more than 80 journal articles and book chapters and is co-editor of a book on sports and digital media. In 2013 the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication named her a distinguished alumni scholar. Hardin has taught classes that focus on sports and society at the undergraduate and graduate levels. 

AEJMC is a nonprofit organization of more than 3,700 educators, students and practitioners from around the globe. Founded in 1912, by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, the first president (1912-13) of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism, as it was then known, AEJMC is the oldest and largest alliance of journalism and mass communication educators and administrators at the college level.

AEJMC’s mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to encourage the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication in an effort to achieve better professional practice, a better informed public, and wider human understanding.

Last Updated June 14, 2021