Welcome from the Dean
Welcome to the College of Social Sciences.
When the destructive 7.9 earthquake shook China in May, NBC News correspondent -- and 1986 graduate in mass communication -- Mark Mullen was one of the first reporters on the air. His stories capitvated viewers of NBC and MSNBC and those who clicked to their Web sites to get the latest news. As the death toll rose, Mark filed this report from Beijing.
At CNN's main newsroom in Atlanta, one of those working with the story was Andreas Preuss, a 1987 mass communication graduate. . When a story like the earthquake breaks in that vast news center, he has to deal with what can be pandemonium. Andreas gave me a tour not long ago; we can see the newsroom behind the CNN anchors, but from the living room, we can't tell how large it is or all the activity that's going. Seeing it up close was an eye-opener for me.
That tour capped a weekend in Atlanta that also featured an alumni club crawfish boil that Andreas and his wife, Nonnie, hosted. Among those enjoying the mudbugs were grads from 1958 to 2008, and three were communications alums.
Helping to dish up the crawfish was Mark Dvorak, '89, vice president at the GolinHarris public relations firm.
Belinda Hernandez, ’88, long a producer at WDSU-TV in New Orleans, now a senior producer with CNN Headline News was also there.
So was Elena Volpert Mappus, ’96, now communication manager, information technology, for the Southern Company. Elena is also president of the Atlanta chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
At another alumni shindig, in Los Angeles, the featured speaker was Russ Myerson, '76, executive vice president and general manager of The CW Plus. Russ has had quite a trek from the Loyola campus --to television stations in Lake Charles, La. and Jacksonville, Fla., and to executive positions with Media General, Sony Pictures Entertainment, the WB network, and, now, CW. In 1994, he was chairman and chief executive officer of the National Association of Television Program Executives International.
Four alumnae turned up among 50 New Orleans attorneys honored in CityBusiness' annual Leadership in Law edition for their competence in law and their contributions to the community. They are Tracey Flemings-Davillier, '91, sociology, an attorney with Phelps Dunbar; Chauntis Jenkins, '95, a double major in political science and communications, a partner with Porteus, Hainkel, Johnson; Erin Fury Parkinson, '81,' political science, with McGlinchey Stafford; and Renee Smith, '90, communications and political science, and '94, M.A. in mass communication, with Goins Aaron.
In the District of Columbia, 
Tonya Vidal Kinlow, a 1983 political science graduate, has become the first
ombudsman for public education in the district. Ms. Kinlow is a former D.C. school board member.
Sports fans out there are getting to know the name Michael Smith and respect the top-notch reporting and commentary thathe does. Smith has been one of the regulars 
on ESPN's "Around the Horn," and now we can see him on the sports network's new magazine show "E: 60." We at Loyola have long known Mike Smith as a terrific journalist. He got his start as a reporter and sports editor for The Maroon, our award-winning campus newspaper. He also worked for the Times-Picayune, and after his graduation as a magna cum laude journalism major in 2001, he was hired by the Boston Globe. ESPN picked him up from there three years later.
Another graduate from the former Department of Communications (and of Loyola's College of Law), 
Desiree Charbonnet, '90, just won election as municipal judge in New Orleans. She had been Recorder of Mortgages. I remember Desiree well from the six weeks she spent with the Loyola Summer Program in Mexico City; just a few years ago, she was one of the students in my course, Mexican Media System.
For more on the accomplishments of our alumni, click here.
If our alumni do well, it’s because they did well as students. Our Social Justice Scholars, based in the sociology department, this semester have been conducting a well-conceived and well –carried out effort to spotlight modern-day slavery of children and women. One of them, Dannielle Gaubert, has been selected to receive one of two 2008 Ignatian Awards for Outstanding Graduating Senior. She is majoring in sociology and has a double minor in women's studies and Spanish.
The other Ignatian awardee as Outstanding Graduating Senior is Andre Breaux, a mass communication major with a concentration in public relations and a minor in English literature.
Our Bateman public relations team is one of three finalists in the 2008 campaign competition. Team adviser is Dr. Cathy Rogers, associate professor of mass communication. Members are seniors Kelly Rayner, Jamaica Estates, N.Y.; Shannon Corrigan, Harvey, La.; Daniel Mazier, Phoenix, Ariz.; Andrea Mulcrone, Park Ridge, Ill.; and Kelly Roth, Laplace, La. Their campaign, Step Up Strap In, educated 11 to14 year olds about seat belt safety. This is the ninth year that Loyola has ranked in the top three of the PRSSA Bateman competition. Loyola placed first in 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2005.
A group of Loyola photojournalism students led by Dr. Leslie Parr won praise for their participation in a Narional Geographic Photo Camp in New Orleans recently. They acted as mentors and team leaders to 20 New Orleans Vietnamese-American students, ages 14 to 18, who documented life in the local Vietnamese community. The camp was taught by National Geographic's professional photographers and editors with the assistance of Times-Picayune photographers .
Dr. Parr is Shawn M. Donnelley Professor of Nonprofit Communications, head of the School of Mass Communication journalism sequence and director of the Shawn M. Donnelley Center for Nonprofit Communications.
This is the second time Loyola students have participated in the photo camp as mentors. Last year, the National Geographic selected 15 local high school students, armed them with cameras and photography basics, and let them loose to document New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The result is a stunning photo documentary, "After the Disaster: A Look at New Orleans."
Loyola students are the life’s blood of the university, and the majors in our schools and departments are particularly good students. They bring excellent credentials from their high schools, 
they work hard at their courses, develop habits of critical thinking and are a delight in the classroom, both as students for the faculty and as classmates for their fellow students.
Just how effective their Loyola education is they demonstrate in their extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Like Danielle Gaubert and Andre Breaux, they become involved as leaders in the life of the university, and when they go head-to-head with students in other institutions, whether in individual or group competitions, they excel-- just like the members of the Bateman team and staff members of the award-winning campus newspaper, The Maroon. They also participate in community service organizations, and they can take satisfaction in knowing that they have helped their fellow human beings.
As students advance, they intern in a wide variety of local and national governmental, health, social service and communications organizations. Their internships help them put into practice – and test – concepts they have learned in their classrooms. It is not unusual for students to report that they learned more at an internship than in their classes, but in my experience, that’s a tribute to what they have taken from their Loyola course work; they could not have learned so much had they not had a strong and steady foundation.
In those and many other ways since Hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans has served as a vast classroom for our students in every major. In an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, a New Orleans native, wrote, "For students, few places will offer a more enriching education in what it means to be a useful citizen than Tulane, Xavier, Loyola and the other New Orleans colleges."
In a short essay in the Washington Post , Terry Byrne, mother of then- freshman Miki Byrne, put it better than any of us here could. Read her moving piece, "Real Life 101."
As you think about going to college, you might want to pick up a little book by political science professor Peter Burns:
Success In College: From C's In High School to A's in College. (Read the first chapter here.) The book is based on Dr. Burns' own experience when he, as a C student, entered college, and in it he takes a down-to-earth approach to getting better grades. His advice can be a big help to any student who really wants to do well.
Dr. Burns is a visiting scholar in the 2007-08 academic year at Dartmouth College's prestigious Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences.
Other Social Sciences faculty returned to campus after being scattered around the world during the summer. Among them, Dr. J. Cathy Rogers, associate professor of public relations, had a summer fellowship at The Advertising Council in New York. Dr. Lydia Voigt, University Distinguished Professor and professor of sociology and chair of the sociology department, taught in Loyola's new China program in Beijing and Shanghai. Dr. Angel Parham, assistant professor of sociology, inaugurated a successful study abroad program in the Bahamas.
Although our Social Sciences faculty members are, like Dr. Parr and Dr. Burns, almost all lay men and women, they embody the best characteristics of renowned Jesuit educators. To paraphrase the scholar Jacques Barzun, they know their students and love their students, and they know their subjects and love their subjects.
They have conducted significant research and have shared their findings in hundreds of pages in books and scholarly journals, and they have been honored for their achievements.
What they have learned in the process radiates through their lectures and discussions.
Faculty members also lead their students into a life of service through their example. They are active in their professional associations and as volunteers in community organizations.
They show clearly how educated individuals can use their academic expertise in the service of others. And busy as they are, all, even the most senior faculty members, are available to their students.
For those of you who will be out traveling around looking at colleges and universities this year, we are more than happy to visit with you at any time. Just let our Admissions office know you are coming.
Even if you cannot get to campus, you can e-mail the directors or chairs of any of our schools or departments to get particular information. Just click on Undergraduate Programs of Study to find the unit you are interested in and you will find the head's e-mail address. If you wish, write to me at lorenz@loyno.edu.
Alfred Lawrence Lorenz, Ph.D.
A. Louis Read Distinguished Professor in Mass Communication
Interim Dean of the College of Social Sciences
