Top 5 Candidates for USC Annenberg Dean
USC's Annenberg School for Communication has narrowed its search for a new dean to five candidates and will conduct meetings with the candidates -- open to students and faculty -- over the next few weeks.
Last year Dean Geoffrey Cowan announced that he would step down after two five-year terms as dean of the Annenberg School, leading many to speculate on a qualified successor. He was endowed with the inaugural Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and will serve as a fellow at Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press among other things.
Cowan's career accomplishments are impressive and by all accounts, his leadership and fundraising skills as dean of the Annenberg School will be hard to replace.
Cowan, who directed Voice of America under Bill Clinton, founded USC's Center on Public Diplomacy in 2003. Its prominence, along with a new Master's in Public Diplomacy program, evidently appealed to at least two of the five candidates for dean (Wilson and Tharoor).
And the nominees candidates for deanship of USC's Annenberg School for Communication are....
Shashi Tharoor
United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information
Named "Global Leader of Tomorrow" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 1988. Tharoor appeared on the Colbert Report last week:
Ernest James Wilson III
Senior Research Scholar, Center for International Development and Conflict Management, Professor, Government and Politics Department -- University of Maryland
Wilson is teaching a course on "smart power" (class blog) this semester at USC. He blogs frequently at TPMCafe and USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Penelope Muse Abernathy
Vice President and Executive Director, The Media Center/International Council, The Museum of Television & Radio
-- previously president of The New York Times News Services Division and publisher of the Harvard Business Review.
Everette E. Dennis
Distinguished Felix E. Larkin Professor of Media and Entertainment Industries, Director, Center for Communications -- Fordham Graduate School of Business
-- Distinguished U. of Oregon alumnus, editor of several media studies books.
Willow Bay
Executive Producer and Host of Lifetime Television’s Spotlight 25, Freelance Anchor and Contributor -- NBC News Channel
-- The wife of Disney CEO Bob Iger, Bay got her start as a fashion model and was often featured in Seventeen. Previously anchored CNN's Moneyline News Hour. One-time blogger at Huffington Post.