LOUISVILLE, Ky. (May 23, 2007)—Bellarmine University President Dr. Joseph J. McGowan announced the creation of the Bellarmine Institute for Media, Culture and Ethics today at a news conference on campus.
“With the creation of this institute, we are taking a major step in realizing a key component of our VISION 2020,” McGowan said. Vision 2020 is the initiative that calls for Bellarmine to build and support its faculty, enhance student life, increase enrollment, add new schools and academic programs, and consider a move to NCAA Division I athletics by the year 2020.
The new institute will create an educational environment for research, study and discussion of media and culture. It will teach skills in existing and emerging communications media technologies, teach students to be critical consumers of popular culture as promulgated by mass media, and examine and promote ethics in media.
The institute also will serve as an incubator for a planned new School of Communication: Media, Culture and Ethics. McGowan said the planned school would emerge from the Institute’s work and from enhancing the university’s existing strong Communication Department. He said a master’s degree program in communications is one likely outcome.
The institute’s creation comes a year after Bellarmine appointed Ed Manassah, a former publisher of The Courier-Journal, as executive in residence with the task of creating a new school of communication at Bellarmine. “The institute is the first step toward creating the School of Communication: Media, Culture and Ethics,” said Manassah, who will be executive director of the institute.
Since April 2006, Manassah has been researching the viability of such a school and raising seed money for the venture. To date, he has raised more than $750,000 through foundations and private donors to research and develop the school.
Of that amount, $500,000 is a gift from Bellarmine alumnus and trustee Joseph P. Clayton (Bellarmine Class of 1971), a Bardstown, Ky., native, who is chairman of Sirius Satellite Radio. Clayton’s gift will fund an endowed professorship in Media Management.
“To prepare for the world of media in the future, students will need to master a solid content base as well as the ability to acquire rapidly changing application skills,” Clayton said. “This is the foundation of the design and search for this prestigious position.”
Retired CBS News President Andrew Heyward will be the Institute’s first fellow. He will work with students, lead seminar discussions on media and present a lecture to the Bellarmine family and the community at large. He will begin this fall.
Also this fall, the Institute will partner with the Poynter Institute, a journalism education facility in Florida, to conduct an ethics seminar bringing together local media, students and community members.
On Sept. 19, the Institute will sponsor “Freedom Sings,” a concert by a 7-piece band that focuses on Freedom of Speech. Freedom Sings is a critically acclaimed multi-media experience featuring an all-star cast of musicians and an “only-in-America” story line. It is sponsored by the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.
The presentation tells the story of almost three centuries of banned or censored music in America and invites audiences to take a new look at the First Amendment.
This entertaining, irreverent and inspiring program is backed with live music, video and graphics. It features hit songwriters and Grammy Award winners devoted to sharing the power, passion and poetry of music.
Bellarmine University, which is ranked as a top 20 “master’s university” by U.S. News and World Report, currently has four academic schools, with the communication department housed in Bellarmine College (arts and sciences).
Institute for Media, Culture and Ethics Web site.