English Education Professor selected for Distinguished Scholar Lecture

The University of Southern Indiana's College of Liberal Arts selected Dr. Roy Fox, MU professor of English education, to deliver its 2009 Distinguished Scholar Lecture.  As part of the lectureship, Fox delivered two presentations entitled "Mucking around in Media: Confessions of a Critical Consumer" and "Give Sorrow Words: Restoring the Self through Language and Image."

The distinguished lecture series was established in 1985 and has included such honorees as  poet, Nikki Giovanni; philosopher, Allan Bloom; political scientist, Francis Fukuyama; historian, Jonathan Brown; critic and poet, John Ciardi; classical music historian, Karl Haas; and feminist and artist, Judy Chicago. 

Each year USI's College of Liberal Arts presents the lectureship to draw attention to one or more of the disciplines within the College.   Dr. Gael L. Cooper, director of the Scripps Howard Center for Media Studies and professor of public relations, selected Fox for the 2009 lecture.   Cooper received both a MA and PhD in journalism from the University of Missouri. 

About Dr. Roy Fox

From 1978 to 1991, Fox served as assistant professor and then as a tenured associate professor in the Department of English at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, where he taught a variety of writing, literature, and education courses. In 1980 Fox became this University's first Director of Writing, where he established new writing requirements for all undergraduate students; revised the writing program; founded the Writing & Learning across the Disciplines program with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities; and established The TELL Center (Technology in English Language and Literature).

At MU, Fox directs the award-winning Missouri Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project. His research focuses on the teaching and learning of writing, as well as media literacy--especially how people interact with television, film, and advertising messages.

In addition to numerous chapters and articles, Fox is the author of several books, including Harvesting Minds: How TV Commercials Control Kids and MediaSpeak: Three American Voices. He has received the Maxine Christopher Shutz Award for Distinguished Teaching and the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.

As an MU department chair, Fox led the department through reorganization and development of a new mission and focus that includes new initiatives, such as the Senior Year On-Site Program and several on-line graduate degrees. He is the founder of the Lewis & Clark Center for Integrated Learning and, most recently, the Mizzou Men for Excellence in Elementary Teaching (MMEET) Program, which seeks to recruit and develop high-caliber male elementary teachers. Fox also chaired the steering committee for an international conference, Literacies of Hope: Making Meaning across Boundaries, held in Beijing, China, in summer 2007.