Racial, gender and ethnic diversity are increasingly becoming more common in leadership roles. The Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC) has created a fellowship to prepare and mentor academics across the nation. Dr. Brigitta Brunner, an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Auburn, has been chosen to participate in the year-long fellowship.

The Journalism and Mass Communication Leadership Institute for Diversity (JLID), a sector of the AEJMC, selects nine associate or full professors interested in administration. These participants come from various universities or colleges across the United States. The institute’s objective is to “offer a year-long program to identify, recruit, mentor and train future leaders and administrators.”

“JLID is a very interesting program,” said Brunner. “It is meant to help minorities and women who might be interested in leadership positions to learn more about what it means to be a leader, department chair, dean or something along those lines.”

Each member is provided with a mentor for guidance and support throughout the year. The participant and the mentor keep in contact through telephone and email. There is also a week-long visit from the mentor to the participant’s home campus. Brunner’s mentor is from the Virginia Commonwealth University.

There are several workshop sessions throughout the year. This is a chance for the nine members to come together and cover an array of administrative issues.

“In December we met in Louisville and talked about leadership styles and personality traits,” said Brunner. “This offered great insight into why people may react to a situation in a certain way, how they think differently than us and how they may process information differently. Learning this information about myself was empowering.”

Next week the group will meet in Chicago, Ill. They will be discussing accreditation. This will be especially useful information to bring back to Auburn University to help the communication and journalism department through the next cycle of accreditation said Brunner.

The final workshop will be held in August. It will be in Boston, and the session will be focused on fundraising.

The 2009 JLID group consists of three men and six women. Four of the members are minorities and the other five are Caucasian. The nine members keep in touch through email, Facebook, Twitter, and more in between workshops.

“There are only nine people chosen nationally to participate, so I am really quite honored to be taking part in this organization,” said Brunner.

This program is an opportunity to learn about and accept the growing number of women and minorities in leadership roles. Brunner will bring back and share with Auburn the insights that she has learned from the organization. Brunner said that she would be interested in taking on a leadership role in the future. She will be prepared for the position because of the experience and knowledge that she has gained through JLID.

The JLID program was founded in 2000 and was created by AEJMC President, Dr. Marilyn Kern-Foxworth. It has received funding from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation and is based out of South Carolina. For more information about the AEJMC or JLID, visit the Web site: http://aejmc.org/_org/_jlid/index.php.


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