SCHOOL WELCOMES MURROW FELLOWS

ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2022, SENIOR FELLOW SCOTT LIBIN and Silha Center Director Jane Kirtley hosted the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists fellows who were taking part in the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. The participants were print and broadcast journalists from 16 different countries, including Armenia, Bangladesh, Croatia, Ethiopia, Malaysia and South Africa. They discussed topics including the history and importance of press freedom in the United States; the structure, practices, and future of broadcast journalism in the United States; how new technologies shape the way news is gathered, reported, distributed, and consumed; and the crucial role of responsibility and accuracy in reporting in a democracy.

In 2020, Sommerfeldt was selected by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and the U.S. Department of State as a Jefferson Science Fellow—the only communication scholar ever to receive this honor. He was appointed as a Senior Advisor to the State Department in 2022. He is a two-time winner of the “Best Article of the Year” award from the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association. Sommerfeldt has repeatedly consulted for the U.S. Department of State and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and has been invited to lecture by the Department of Defense Information School, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army Reserve, NATO, and the Norwegian Business School. He was recently elected as the vice-chair of the Public Relations Division of the International Communication Association.

“I couldn’t be happier to join the Hubbard School as the academic director of the Professional M.A. in Strategic Communication. The Hubbard School has world-class instructors and researchers, and I look forward to joining their ranks and learning from my new colleagues as well as the excellent students in the M.A. program. I thank my new Minnesota friends for giving me such a warm welcome!”