October 29, 2024
Today, I want to use this space to brag about SMPA.
All you have heard me say that in SMPA, we study, shape, and tell the stories that matter. The last couple of weeks have provided good examples of all three. In my last missive, I highlighted an interview that GW alumni honoree Zinhle Essamuah (SMPA ‘15 and ‘17), an Emmy-nominated NBC journalist, did with Trevor Noah during alumni and family weekend.
A week ago today, SMPA professor Ethan Porter, SMPA combined degree student Massimo Alicea, and two political campaign professionals talked about the role that digital media is playing in the 2024 campaign. C-SPAN covered the event - we didn’t pitch them, they called us.
Last Thursday, SMPA awarded the 2024 Robert M. Entman Award in Democracy and Political Communication to Professor W. Lance Bennett. Professor Entman is one of the most important political communication scholars - and one of the most important political scientists - of the last half-century, and he ended his academic career in SMPA. After he retired, SMPA established the Entman Award to honor a senior scholar in the field. This year’s recipient, like Prof. Entman, has shaped how we understand political communication. Professor Bennett led an informal brown-bag conversation over lunch with a few students and faculty, gave a public talk to a packed room, and was the guest at a small dinner in the studio.
On Friday, GW Today highlighted the work of SMPA graduate program alum Tevon Blair. Tevon came to SMPA after graduating from Dillard University, an HBCU in New Orleans. His SMPA graduate capstone project was a plan for an organization to register students at HBCUs to vote. He turned that project into a campaign that is receiving national recognition and that will help decide elections up and down the ballot.
We don’t do what we do for the attention or applause, but it’s nice when it happens. Feeling #SMPAProud.