The lecturer in strategic communications and faculty director of Live Oak Communications will serve in a division head leadership position for the nation’s oldest and largest journalism and mass communications academic association.
Hal Vincent, lecturer in strategic communications, has been appointed to the head leadership position of the Advertising Division for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AJEMC), a nonprofit, educational organization of educators, students and media professionals. The election and announcement were made at AEJMC’s August conference held in Toronto, where Vincent co-led a daylong teaching workshop.
Vincent was first elected to the executive committee of the Advertising Division in 2016 as its education and teaching standards chair, where he coordinated the division’s two annual teaching award processes and supervised the peer-reviewed research manuscript competition for submissions related to advertising education. In 2018, he was elected as vice head responsible for annual conference programming and scheduling, and now assumes the duties as the head of the 200-plus member division for the 2019-20 academic year.
“Hal did an excellent job this past year as vice head and program chair of the Advertising Division,” said John Wirtz, outgoing division head and associate professor at the University of Illinois. “One thing I really appreciated about Hal is that he consistently finds the balance between pushing himself and other members of the executive committee to ‘raise the bar,’ while at the same time helping to maintain a positive and supportive work environment. I’m very excited to see what the Advertising Division will accomplish this year under Hal’s leadership.”
The Advertising Division is responsible for helping the larger organization achieve its mission to advance teaching and research in all areas of journalism and mass communications with an emphasis on issues related to freedom of expression, teaching pedagogy, media literacy and ethics, and global diversity and inclusion perspectives in education and professional communication industries.
For the second consecutive year, Vincent and Marcel Jennings, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, conceived and organized the Advertising Division’s daylong, pre-conference teaching boot camp. According to Vincent, the Advertising Division has a long history of offering new and seasoned educators an informative and collaborative day of research and teaching presentations from established educators and professionals.
“This year’s conference location of Toronto provided the natural opportunity for Marcel and me to organize our session around the theme, ‘the Small Small World of Global Advertising,’” Vincent said.
Four special topics panels were offered to allow educators to see how global perspectives are re-shaping the advertising business from professionals, and then the panels focused on how teachers can incorporate those industry realities into classroom applications, Vincent explained.
“Even the smallest, home-based organization has the potential to reach and influence many different people around the world,” Vincent said. “An understanding of multicultural perspectives improves international citizenship and, of course, advertising effectiveness for everybody. We aren’t in a homogenous, sameness world that many old advertising tactics leveraged for local appeal. After all, anyone with an internet connection can see our communications and buy goods and services. So, everyone is globally focused and inclusive if they wish to responsibly and effectively participate in 21st-century marketing communications.”
Vincent said he already looks forward to the weeklong AEJMC conference in San Francisco in August 2020. His term of service to the executive committee for the Advertising Division concludes at that time.
AEJMC
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. The association’s mission is to advance education, foster scholarly research, cultivate better professional practice and promote the free flow of communication.