Date: Apr 14, 2008

Hofstra's School of Communication Professors Win Fulbright Fellowships

Professors Will Travel to Colombia and India to Work with Communities on Communication Projects

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Mario Murillo and Aashish Kumar, Associate Professors in Hofstra’s Department of Radio, Television and Film have both been awarded Fulbright Fellowships to travel to Colombia and India respectively, in order to work with local communities on specific projects in communication.  

Professor Kumar will travel to India to work on a service learning project with college students. His course, titled “Media Action Projects:  Linking Campus to Community” is offered in collaboration with the faculty and students of the S.N. School of Performing Arts, Fine Arts and Communication at the University of Hyderabad. The project seeks to assist media production students in developing videos that document community processes or problems.   The project illustrates the applied side of academics to media production students while also providing valuable service to both the faculty-client and community-partner.

Professor Murillo will travel to Colombia to work with community radio organizations. His mission involves direct participatory research related to the training and development of public service radio broadcasters in two distinct settings: one, the emerging university radio networks that are beginning to take shape in the large urban centers of Colombia and two, the indigenous community radio stations in rural Colombia. At La Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Professor Murillo will work with students to produce a series of programs that will be distributed throughout the country as university radio licensees begin developing their programming network. Later, he will travel to northern Cauca province to work with young community radio journalists who report on the vast indigenous territories of the area.

Dean Sybil DelGaudio says: “We’re proud of Mario and Aashish, not only because they each have received such a significant honor, but also because both of their projects carry forward (on an international basis) the School of Communication’s mission to reach beyond the campus in an effort to create a relationship among the students, their projects and the community for mutually beneficial results.”  Hofstra recently received a grant from the Long Island Community Foundation for a service-learning project similar to those described above.
   
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