About
The School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA) is the only one of its kind in the capital of politics and media and we are able to explore the interplay of media and politics unlike anywhere else. Our community benefits from access to an extensive network, events with government leaders, distinguished journalists, and leading academics for thoughtful and balanced conversations that deliver unique insights.
SMPA is made up of a select group of students with an outstanding academic record and passion for politics, journalism, media, and communication. As an SMPA student, you will study, learn, and make lifelong friendships in a very special place.
Our faculty members are top academics and professionals in their fields, bringing extensive experience and networks of knowledge into their classes. Our alumni such as Dana Bash, Reena Ninan, and Brendon Boyle are leaders in advocacy, politics, business, and journalism.
In an era of dramatic change, disinformation and misinformation, and information overload, we provide the skills, theory, ethics and experience necessary to communicate effectively and inspire change.
Meet the Director
While Peter Loge is the new director, he is not new to SMPA.
Loge was an adjunct instructor from about 2000 through the spring of 2016. In the fall of 2017, he joined the faculty full time as the first “political practitioner in residence.” In 2021, he joined Professor Waisbord’s team as the associate director, and before that filled in as assistant director for a semester when Professor Phalen was on sabbatical. In 2019, Loge launched the Project on Ethics in Political Communication in SMPA to promote the study, teaching and practice of political communication ethics. He also created a course in political communication ethics, making GW the only school in the country with an undergraduate political communication ethics class in a university course bulletin.
In 2020, he edited Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice, the only textbook to bring together chapters from working political professionals and academics. In addition, he is affiliated faculty with the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication in SMPA, and an associate fellow in Timothy Dwight College at Yale. Loge is also a senior fellow at the Agirre Lehendakaria Center in Bilbao, a leading think tank in the Basque Country in Spain and a member of the advisory board at the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University. He earned his BS from Emerson College, and master’s degrees from Syracuse University and Arizona State University.
Prior to joining SMPA full time, Loge worked in politics and strategic communication. Over the past 30+ years, he has served in senior staff positions for three members of the US House, Senator Edward Kennedy, and in the Obama administration. As the director of The Justice Project he led a team that helped redefine the death penalty debate in America, and as the vice president for external relations at the US Institute of Peace he brought together six teams across USIP to raise the Institute’s profile in Congress and around the world. As a consultant, first at a national firm and then on his own, he worked with everyone from American Farmland Trust and America’s Funniest Home Videos, to WickedCoolStuff.com and the World Wildlife Fund. Over that time Loge put the first member of Congress on the internet, was a chief of staff in the US House during President Clinton’s impeachment, served as health care policy advisor during the Affordable Care Act debate, and coordinated the first online chat with a US Senator. In 2016 the FDA Commissioner created a position for him to support the FDA’s efforts on the opioid epidemic, the Precision Medicine Initiative, the Cancer Moonshot, and outreach to academic medical centers. After joining SMPA full time, Loge continued to advise clients on communications and management, and published Soccer Thinking for Management Success: Lessons for Organizations from the World’ Game, which debuted as a #1 new release on Amazon. In early 2023, he wrote a chapter for a book about a governance model in the Basque autonomous province Gipuzkoa, and over the past six years has published pieces in Media Ethics Magazine, The Hill, Campaigns & Elections, and elsewhere.
At every step, Loge has brought his real-world experience to the classroom, and theory to his practice. He regularly presents client challenges to students, and one client asked to remove the “suggested reading” section from a campaign plan he wrote (as those of you who know him might guess, it was long on Aristotle and Frank Baumgartner). Before joining SMPA, his writing appeared in a book about the death penalty, the Drake Law Review, an international forum on peacekeeping, and elsewhere.
For more than 20 years Peter Loge has been #SMPAProud.
SMPA Alumna, Claritza Jiménez, B.A. ’05 Launches InColorStock
Claritza Jiménez, journalist and producer for Politico and The Washington Post, former Political Communication major in SMPA, and SMPA National Council member, launched a business-to-business site called InColorStock that she hopes will fill the market gap for culturally accurate, diverse images.