2014 Crosman Lecture at CU-Boulder: Nick Couldry

The 2015 Ralph L. Crosman lecture, “Sustainability and Digital Media: Toward a Green Media Ecology,” 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are examining the hardware’s environmental impact, from the sourcing of raw materials to the disposal of dead and outdated media technology.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’s journalism school.

鶹Ƶ 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."

Willard D. (Wick) Rowland, 2013

Keith Woods, 2012

Steve Reese, 2011

Brian McNair, 2010

Barbie Zelizer, 2009

Lance Bennett, 2008

John McManus, 2007

Clifford G. Christians, 2006

Cees J. Hamelink, 2005

Tom Rosenstiel, 2004

Janet Wasko, 2003

George Lipsitz, 2001

Diane Winston, 2000

James E. O’Shea, 1999

James R. Gaines, 1998

Trygve Myhren, 1997

James D. Halloran, 1996

James W. Carey, 1995

Ed and Betsy Marston, 1994

Martyn Lewis, 1993

Tad Bartimus, 1992

Ben H. Bagdikian, 1991

Leo Bogart, 1990

Denis McQuail, 1989

Ellen Wartella, 1988

Deborah Howell, 1986

Melvin S. Mencher, 1982

Curt Beckman, 1980

Thomas Johnson, 1979

Richard M. Schmidt, Jr., 1976

Palmer Hoyt, 1975

Edward M. Fouhy, 1973

Rodney Angove, 1972

Lawrence Lee, 1971

Philip E. Meyer, 1970

Richard Barnes, 1969

Sterling E. (Jim) Soderlind, 1968

Thomas G. Wicker, 1967

Nick B. Williams, 1966

Hazel Brannan Smith, 1965

Lawrence S. Fanning, 1964

Clark Mollenhoff, 1963

Frank R. Ahlgren, 1962

Douglass Cater, 1961

Herbert Brucker, 1959

Irving Dilliard, 1958

Norman Isaacs, 1957

Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 1956

Carl E. Lindstrom, 1955

Edward Lindsay, 1954

Doris Fleeson, 1953