2014 Crosman Lecture at CU-Boulder: Nick Couldry
The 2015 Ralph L. Crosman lecture, 鈥淪ustainability and Digital Media: Toward a Green Media Ecology,鈥� was delivered by Richard Maxwell, PhD, of Queens College, City of New York.
Maxwell spoke about the environmental risks associated with media technology. While the field of media and communication studies has largely focused on media content, Maxwell said, a growing number of scholars are examining the hardware鈥檚 environmental impact, from the sourcing of raw materials to the disposal of dead and outdated media technology.
The Crosman lecture series honors the memory of the first director of the University of Colorado鈥檚 journalism school.
About Professor Crosman
Throughout his career, Crosman was an energetic, thoughtful leader in journalism and communication education. His work at CU helped shape the values of journalism education nationally. He served as president of the forerunner of one of our major scholarly organizations, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and as national president of Kappa Tau Alpha, the principal honorary society in this field.
He was a regular speaker before major state, regional and national press and media education associations. His lectures before such groups in the mid-1940s raised important concerns about the role of the press and mass media in contemporary society and democracy, and they had a telling impact on the work of the Hutchins Commission and its 1946 report on the problems of freedom and responsibility in the American press.
His work was universally respected by academics and professionals alike, and there have been few journalism educators whose criticisms have been so widely published and commented upon in trade journals. At the time of his passing. Ralph Crosman's contributions to the field were generously applauded by fellow journalism leaders across the country.
Typical was the observation by Ralph Casey, the director at Minnesota: "His professional ideals were the highest, and he possessed (uncommon) courage in fighting for the ethical and social conceptions that the press should hold uppermost."