Jon Bekken, Ph.D., professor of communications at Albright College has earned second place in an Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Law and Policy Teaching competition for his course, “Democracy, Journalism and Free Expression in the First-Year Seminar.”
AEJMC is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. The competition focused on teaching freedom of expression as a cornerstone of democracy and submissions were reviewed by a panel of judges.
Reviewers said that Bekken’s idea “directly and significantly engages with the prompt of helping students interrogate whether free speech is necessary for democracy to flourish.”
As an awardee, Bekken will take part in a pre-conference session and will be recognized during the Law and Policy Division’s business meeting at the AEJMC national conference, August 8-11 in Philadelphia, Pa.
“The fundamental ideas explored in this course are not new,” says Bekken. “What is unusual, I believe, is introducing this material to a general audience in their first semester in college, and explicitly tying it to issues of accountability and democracy that are currently in the news. This linkage is, I believe, necessary to help students understand the relevance of these issues and to bring these concerns outside the relatively narrow confines of programs in journalism and mass communication.”
