CFA’s Von der Ahe Chair of Communication and Ethics, Lawrence Wenner, was honored as the 2018 recipients of LMU’s Rains Awards for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Works at the recent Faculty Awards Ceremony held on April 25. In addition, Lecturer of Communication Studies, Kristo Gobin, took home the Part-time Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award for his instruction in Fall 2017.
The purpose of the Rains Award is to recognize a tenured member of the professoriate whose service exemplifies the LMU mission in a manner that is outstanding and meaningful. It is designed to highlight the substantial accomplishment of a faculty member whose service is truly extraordinary, and exceeds normal expectations for service. The criteria for selection include the extent to which the awardee has demonstrated substantial achievement and impact in leadership, mentoring, as well as program and policy development. This impact must contribute to the common good of the campus and larger community, and working toward fulfillment of the University’s mission and goals.
Wenner’s research focuses on critical assessments of media content, ethical dimensions of race and gender portrayals in advertising, audience experiences with television in the family context, and the values and consumption of mediated sports. He was honored in 2018 with the International Communication Association, Sport Communication Interest Group’s inaugural Legacy Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the field of sports communication. In 2018, Wenner also founded and edited the journal, Communication and Sport, which won a 2018 PROSE award for “Best New Journal in Social Sciences” from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. His research includes nine books and approximately 130 scholarly journal articles and book chapters. His notable books include Media, Sports and Society, MediaSport, and Critical Approaches to Television (with Leah Vande Berg and Bruce Gronbeck). At Loyola Marymount University, he directs the Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility and teaches media ethics in Philosophy and narrative ethics in the University Honors Program.
The Part-time Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes part‐time faculty members who have been especially successful in their teaching and who have demonstrated passion for their discipline and continuing engagement with the relevant scholarship, have identified appropriate learning outcomes, set high standards for student learning, are prepared and organized with clear and stimulating lectures, explore new pedagogies and successful models of teaching and learning, and are continually striving to improve the quality of their teaching.
Gobin is the first in his family to attend college and is now completing his sixth year of teaching at LMU. He attended CSU, Northridge where he majored in Communication Studies. As a graduate student at San Jose State University, Gobin wrote and performed the first performance studies thesis at that school. He has gone on to perform his play at over thirty colleges and universities, and has had the honor of taking his show to Croatia, his ancestral land. For Gobin, teaching is the process of understanding one’s self to understand others. Vital competencies are explored in his classes: empathy, community, inclusion, social justice, compassion, and love. He believes scholarship is at its best when it is fully embodied so that it lives through each of us – in the work we do, the relationships we cultivate, and how we include others.
Pictured above: Lawrence Wenner (left) and Kristo Gobin (right) accepting their awards.