Everette E Dennis has been appointed dean of Northwestern University in Qatar.

Everette Dennis, currently the Felix E Larkin Distinguished Professor and chairperson of Communication and Media Management at Fordham University Business School, will join Northwestern University in Qatar effective June 1, 2011. He succeeds founding Dean John D Margolis, who has served as the dean of NU-Q since its inception in 2007.

Professor Dennis, who is also currently the director of the Center for Communications at Fordham and executive director of the International Longevity Center-USA in New York City, is widely recognised and respected in the fields of communication and journalism, and more broadly within higher education, as a scholar, author, educator, and educational leader. He earned his PhD in mass communication, constitutional law and history from the University of Minnesota, and has held advanced fellowships at Harvard Law School and Harvard's Institute of Politics. He earned an MA from Syracuse University in communication and a BS in journalism/political science from the University of Oregon.

Professor Dennis’ previous experience also includes serving as dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon; director of Graduate Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, and as the founding director of the Media Studies Center at Columbia University, which he led while also serving as the senior vice president of the Gannett and Freedom Forum Foundations.

Professor Dennis also has extensive international experience that will serve Northwestern very well in Qatar. He served as founding president of the American Academy in Berlin, as a trustee at the International Institute of Communications and International Center for Journalists, and as the executive director of the International University Consortium for Freedom Forum. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has been a consultant and lecturer in more than 50 countries.

In addition, Professor Dennis has authored, co-authored, and edited some 45 books, including two in 2010 - Understanding Media in the Digital Age; and the reissue of Other Voices: The New Journalism in America.

Other works include The Media Society, Media Debates, Justice Black & The First Amendment, as well as studies of media in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. His influential coauthored media text with Melvin L DeFleur, Understanding Mass Communication, was published in seven editions, and his books have been translated into 14 languages.  He has served on the editorial board of several international media journals, and is the founding editor of Media Studies Journal.-TradeArabia News Service