Peter Gross

Professor Peter Gross

"A graduate of the University of Iowa (Ph.D. 1983, MA 1977), Dr. Gross serves as the Head of the College’s Journalism Area, and as the Director of the College’s Institute for Research and Training. Multilingual, he has worked and traveled extensively in Western and East/Central Europe, the former Soviet republics, Taiwan, India, and Cuba.

"Since 1989, he has directed journalism workshops and lectured in a number of Western and East/Central European countries and former Soviet republics (Oxford University, England; the universities of Madrid, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, Murcia and Barcelona, Spain; University of Tirana, Albania; the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland; the University of Bucharest, University of Timisoara, and the Black Sea University, Romania; The Association of Georgian Journalists, Tiblisi, Georgia; the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary; the International Summer School for Democracy, Petrovac, Montenegro, FR Yugoslavia,). He has also lecture at Georgetown University and at Oxford University (England).

"He was instrumental in establishing a new journalism program at the University of Timisoara, Romania, in 1992. He has lectured at a number of American universities and at the U.S. Department of State, and continues to lecture at its National Foreign Affairs Training Center (School of Professional and Area Studies – Foreign Service Institute).

"Dr. Gross has carried out training and/or assessment assignments on behalf of the U.S. Information Agency (U.S. Department of State), the Voice of America's International Training program/the International Broadcasting Bureau, and the Academy for Educational Development. He has also conducted journalism workshops in the U.S. and in country for Albanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Kosovar, Macedonian, Romanian, and Russian journalists and journalism students. He served as consultant on East European media issues to, among other governmental and non-governmental institutions, the Washington D.C. - based International Media Fund and The Freedom Forum, and as an educational consultant for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, Czech Republic.

"In 2001, Dr. Gross was placed on the Fulbright Senior Specialist Roster. He has received 46 fellowships, research, lecture and training awards and grants from, among other institutions, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, J. F. Kennedy School of Government; National Academy of Sciences; International Research and Exchanges Board; Pacific Cultural Foundation; U.S. Information Agency; Voice Of America/International Broadcast Bureau; International Media Fund; Soros Foundation; German Marshall Fund of the United States; Freedom Forum; National Science Foundation.

"Dr. Gross was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Bucharest, Romania in 2005.

"He is the author of Entangled Evolutions. Media and Democratization in Eastern Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press/ Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002) and Mass Media in Revolution and National Development: The Romanian Laboratory (Iowa State University Press, 1996), for which he received the 1996 American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences Book Award. He is co-author of Eastern European Journalism. Before, During and After Communism (Hampton Press, 1999).

"He also published four books in Romania, Mass Media and Democracy in Eastern European Nations (Polirom, 2003); Introduction to Newswriting and Newsgathering (Editura de Vest, 1993); Giants With Feet of Clay. The Post-Communist Romanian Press (Polirom, 1999); and the co-authored, The Basics of Public Relations (NIM Press, 1998). The Erich Brost Institute for Journalism in Europe will release his latest (co-authored) book, Problems and Promises: Contemporary Media and Journalism in Romania, in Germany in 2006.

"Dr. Gross has published dozens of articles in American and European academic and professional journals, as well as 19 book and monograph chapters. He serves on the editorial boards of the AEJMC International Communication Bulletin (USA), Journalism Studies (England), Journalism & Communication (Romania), Dilema, a national intellectual weekly (Romania), and Mediakutato, a media studies journal (Hungary).

"He served as the AEJMC International Division’s Chair for Teaching Standards, Chair of the Markham International Student Paper Competition, and Chair of Professional Freedom and Responsibility. He is a member of the European Network for Trans-Integration Research, the South East European Studies Association, the Society for Romanian Studies, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and the Foreign Press Association. He served on the Board of Directors of the American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and as the Academy’s Vice President, 1997-2001.

"Dr. Gross has presented papers at major conferences in the Belarus Republic, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, the Czech Republic, England, the Republic of Georgia, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Taiwan, and the U.S.A."