- Posted in All University
- Category: Campus News
The Department of Communications and Public Relations introduces “Lincoln University Spotlight.” This weekly announcement will spotlight one student and one faculty member who have done great things in their personal/professional life and have contributed greatly to the Legacy of Lincoln University. Every Thursday you will have an opportunity to see who the spotlights are. Please be sure to congratulate them in passing. This is a tremendous opportunity for both the Lincoln University family and for the community to see just what treasures we have here at Lincoln.
In this first edition we are spotlighting Dr. Murali Balaji, Director of the Department of Mass Communications Center of Excellence and Ms. Regan Farley, Department of Mass Communications Major.
Dr. Murali Balaji, Director of Mass Communications Department
Dr. Murali Balaji is a native of Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
In 2010, he and colleague Letrell Crittenden launched The Voice of Philadelphia, a community news portal and media literacy site. He serves on numerous community, journalistic, and scholarly committees and has blogged for Diverse Issues in Higher Education.
He is the author of House of Tinder (2003) and The Professor and The Pupil: The Politics of W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson (2007). His latest publications include Desi Rap(2008), an anthology of essays examining the impact of hip hop on South Asian Americans, and Culturing Manhood and Masculinities, an anthology exploring the meaning and construct of masculinity around the world.
He has worked for over a decade as a journalist, and draws from this experience to advocate for media access. He calls out the fiction of media diversity, which continues to treat non-dominant groups as exotic, and promote the idea that they cannot succeed.
As a journalist, Balaji worked as a newspaper reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Wilmington News Journal, the Washington Post, and numerous other publications. He has been recognized for his commitment to public affairs journalism, and in 2007, won an Independent Press Association of New York award for the best article on racial justice. A former President of the Asian American Journalist Association, Balaji won the President of the Year Award in 2005.
Dr. Balaji has been a member of Lincoln University’s faculty since 2009 and was promoted to program director of the Mass Communications Centers of Excellence in July 2010.
Ms. Regan Farley, Senior, Mass Communications Major
Ms. Regan Farley is a senior at Lincoln University whose activity and dedication to the Lincoln University and its legacy are evident through all that she does. Regan attended Pikesville High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Each year she donates a scholarship program to her alma mater in the amount of 500 dollars entitled The Regan Farley Individual Determination Scholarship. The award is given to a student who displays determination in the mist of their hardships. She also speaks to the students at her former high school during winter and summer breaks. Regan does this because when she graduated high school her GPA was very low and her writing skills where not the best. She states, “Lincoln University took a chance on me, and it is my turn to give back and take a chance on other students who dare to dream.”
Ms. Farley is very involved on campus; she is a member of the Student Government Association (SGA) holding the position of Vice President of External Affairs, a campus tour guide, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Culture Editor of the Lincolnian (Lincoln University student newspaper.) She was Lincoln University’s Woman of the Year during 2010-2011, is a member of Sisters that are Respected Seriously (a group on campus) and the 2nd Vice President of the National Council of Negro Women, Lincoln University Chapter. Her involvement does not go unnoticed, there are not many people who do not know or know of Ms. Farley.
She holds an academic GPA of 3.1. During her junior year Regan interned at CBS Radford in Los Angeles, California for the Insider, which is a popular nationally syndicated television show. Regan says, “The experience pushed me to want to intern in the field of Entertainment News.”
An interesting fact about Regan is that she played basketball since she was nine years old.
######
Lincoln University – founded in 1854 as the nation’s first Historically Black University – combines the best elements of a liberal arts and sciences-based undergraduate core curriculum and selected graduate programs to meet the needs of those living in a highly technological and global society. The University enrolls approximately 2,500 undergraduate and graduate students.
Internationally recognized for preparing learners and producing world-class leaders in their fields, Lincoln has created five academic Centers of Excellence-programs of distinction. They are: Business and Entrepreneurial Studies, Lincoln/Barnes Visual Arts, Mass Communications, Grand Research Educational Awareness, Training (GREAT) for Minority Health, Teacher Education and Urban Pedagogy.