The associate professor of communications will be one of nine participants in the 2019-20 Institute for Diverse Leadership program of AEJMC and ASJMC, two preeminent associations in the field of mass communication.
Vanessa Bravo, associate professor of communications, has been selected for the Institute for Diverse Leadership’s (IDL) yearlong training program, which is dedicated to increasing the number of people of color and women who serve in leadership positions in journalism and communication education. Bravo is one of nine awardees selected for this year’s cohort from across the country.
To be considered, the applicants had to be “associate or full professors interested in administration and/or journalism and communication practitioners who have moved into the academy and have a minimum of three full-time years in an academic setting. The program is for people of color and women,” according to IDL`s call for applicants.
This year, more than 20 individuals applied to participate in the 2019-20 training. Joining Bravo are professors from Michigan State University, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Southern Illinois University, the University of Nevada-Reno, and Washington & Lee University, to name a few.
The IDL program consists of workshop sessions at AEJMC’s 2019 annual conference in Toronto; at AEJMC’s 2020 annual conference in San Francisco; at ASJMC’s 2020 winter conference, and at the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications’ 2020 spring meeting. It also includes a mentorship program with a current administrative mentor and networking sessions. The IDL’s awardees also travel one week to the mentor`s campus for a first-hand look at administrative duties at a journalism/communication program.
IDL was known, in the past, as the JLID fellowship and changed its name a few years ago. Several well-known leaders in the field of mass communications are counted among the program’s alumni. This includes Rochelle Ford, dean of Elon’s School of Communications, Marie Hardin, dean of the College of Communications at Penn State University, Laura Castaneda, former associate director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, and Maria Len-Rios, associate dean for academic affairs at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Georgia.
Bravo joined Elon in 2011 as an assistant professor and was tenured and promoted to associate professor in 2017. She has 14 peer-reviewed publications (between journal articles and book chapters), she was the advisor of Elon`s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and the International Living and Learning Community, and, most recently, she led a two-year-long effort as co-chair of the Latinx/Hispanic Working Group, which delivered a 44-page report to senior management with 46 recommendations to improve the experience of Latinx students, faculty, staff and alumni at Elon University.