SIS professor Hamid Mowlana founded the International Communication program in 1968, making it one of the earliest programs of its nature in the country. He served as its director for 37 years, while winning professional honors, writing 30 books, and serving as a visiting professor at universities in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

Fondest Memory: “I was given a chance to develop this program, and I’ve really seen the field emerging. During the Vietnam War, you could see so many things coming to the surface. International conflict was taking a different shape, the role of information and propaganda was changing . . . I was predicting this would happen, this information age, both in its negative and positive terms . . . Then [the other night] my students had a reception in my honor, and my students decided to make three presentations. You would never have thought, 40 years ago, that students in SIS would now be writing papers [on] new media in the Arab world, identity and anxiety among Muslim students in the U.S., and the role of intercultural communication in globalization. All of these interesting and exciting topics—if you had said 40 years ago we were going to be considering those things, they wouldn’t have believed it!”

Best Part of the Job: “I now have so many students around the world who are both teachers as well as professionals. It’s so nice when you travel. I have supervised almost 150 doctoral dissertations, and close to 50 are teaching all over the world as professors—they are in Indonesia, Finland, Iran, Egypt, Sweden, Australia—some of them are deans and directors. That’s really rewarding.”

Future Plans: “Scholars do not retire like other people, they just change their schedules. I’ll be doing more writing and thinking. My calendar is full for the next five years. I have invitations beginning this summer form the University of Beijing in China, the University of Pubjab in Pakistan, the Sorbonne in Paris, Australia . . . I’m going to have fun and do some writing, especially for the general publicabout my field and its implications.”