A United Nations program that encourages the exchange of scholars and ideas between developing countries and the United States has granted a named professorship to University of Colorado at Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication Professor Meg Moritz.
Moritz will become the university's UNESCO Chair on July 1. UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, established in 1945 to promote international cooperation among nearly 200 member states in the fields of education, science, culture and communication.
"This is a tremendous honor for the school, and a timely one as well," said journalism Dean Paul Voakes. "Our new strategic plan calls for increased activity in international journalism education, and Professor Moritz's chair will provide us leverage to explore a variety of new opportunities."
UNESCO wants to link schools in developing or transitional countries with schools in the United States. "The idea is that chairs work with partner institutions in their particular field," Moritz said. "The chairs help provide exchange of ideas and people.
"The chair gives us the ability to use the UNESCO label as part of our outreach," she said. "While there is no financial support from the organization, we get access to UNESCO networks and expertise."
Moritz spearheaded CU-Boulder's UNESCO application, which was reviewed in Washington, D.C., and Paris and approved after a one-year process. She will leave her role as associate dean for graduate studies to work full time as the CU-Boulder UNESCO Chair. She will continue to work on international graduate education for the Graduate School.
Moritz is currently applying for a grant from the U.S. Department of State to run a three-year journalism project in Tanzania and Boulder. "We'd like to have an exchange with Tanzanian journalists to study and work on journalistic coverage of emerging pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS or avian flu."
Moritz is a former television news producer who focuses her research on media portrayal of gays and the impacts of crisis reporting. She was a writer and story consultant for the documentary film "Scout's Honor," an examination of the Boy Scouts of America's anti-gay policies that won the audience award for best documentary and the Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001. Her hour-long documentary "Covering Columbine" has been screened internationally.
She is a Fulbright Senior Scholar and has presented her research in more than 17 countries. In 2004, she was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne in Paris and a guest lecturer at UNESCO. She has served on the board of governors of the National TV Academy, Heartland Chapter, was a member of the research advisory board for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and a founding board member of the Boulder Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Moritz received bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Northwestern University.