Message from the Dean

Welcome to a New Academic Year at Annenberg

The beginning of an academic year always brings a sense of possibility. It is a time when our community comes together with renewed energy, fresh ideas, and a shared commitment to learning, discovery, and engagement.

What makes Annenberg such a remarkable place is the people who make up this community. Every day, our students, faculty, researchers, postdoctoral fellows, staff, alumni, and partners ask important questions about the role communication plays in shaping our world. How are stories told, and whose voices are heard? What influences our politics, cultures, and identities? How do information and ideas move through societies? And how can communication contribute to a more informed, equitable, and humane future?

These questions have long defined Annenberg's mission, and they continue to guide our work today through our strategic vision, Connected Futures.

Connected Futures provides a framework for building on Annenberg's strengths while creating new opportunities for innovation, engagement, and impact. Grounded in our commitments to intellectual rigor, academic freedom, social responsibility, and community engagement, it is rooted in the belief that communication scholarship and education are most impactful when they connect across disciplines, communities, and sectors.

As that vision takes shape, it is fostering new partnerships in research and teaching, supporting innovation across the School, and deepening our engagement beyond the University. 

This year also marks an exciting milestone as we welcome the inaugural cohort of students in our new Master of Communication and Media Industries program. Drawn from a wide range of professional and academic backgrounds, these students bring expertise and experiences that span industries, disciplines, and communities. Their perspectives will enrich classroom conversations and strengthen the collaborative spirit that defines Annenberg. We look forward to the many ways they will contribute to the School and to the broader media and communication fields in the years ahead.

We are equally delighted to welcome a new cohort of doctoral students whose scholarship reflects the breadth and vitality of communication research today. Their work explores questions that range from gender representation in Bollywood to digital divides in AI development. Their curiosity, creativity, and commitment to advancing knowledge will enrich our intellectual community and help shape important conversations both within Annenberg and across the field.

Annenberg's intellectual life will continue to flourish through lectures, colloquia, symposia, and public events that bring leading scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and innovators into dialogue with our community. This year, we are honored to welcome communications law and antitrust expert Timothy Wu as our 2026 Distinguished Annenberg Lecture speaker, alongside the many accomplished scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders participating in the George Gerbner Lecture, Katz Colloquia, and other events throughout the School. These gatherings create opportunities to exchange ideas, challenge assumptions, and engage thoughtfully with the issues shaping our world.

This year also offers moments to reflect on the individuals whose contributions have left a lasting mark on Annenberg. We will honor the life and legacy of Monroe Price, whose pioneering scholarship helped shape the field of communication. We will also celebrate Barbie Zelizer's extraordinary career and her enduring impact as a scholar, mentor, field-builder, and champion of this community. Their contributions remind us that institutions are ultimately defined not only by the ideas that shape them, but by the people who nurture these ideas and the relationships they inspire.

We begin this academic year amid complexity and challenge. The landscape of higher education is shifting, making our responsibility to keep asking the difficult questions, to explore communication in all its power, to stand for academic freedom, and to care deeply for one another with intention and purpose all the more important.

I hope new ideas, meaningful collaborations, intellectual growth, and a renewed sense of purpose mark this academic year. There has rarely been a more important time to do the work we do, and I am grateful to be part of a community committed to doing that work together.

Welcome back and welcome to Annenberg.