By Alex Boekelheide

The nation’s oldest collegiate journalism education association recognized journalism and communication professor Félix Gutiérrez with its top honor in diversity education August 12. 

On a day marking the 40th anniversary of its Minorities and Communication division, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) commended Gutiérrez’s diversity research and advocacy with the 2011 Lionel C. Barrow Jr. Award for Distinguished Achievement in Diversity Research and Education.

The award is named for a longtime advocate for diversity within the journalism academy. In a career spanning nearly fifty years, Lionel “Lee” Barrow founded AEJMC’s study group on inclusiveness in media education and served as dean of Howard University’s School of Communication.

“The things that we stand for are really embodied in the person the award is named after,” Gutiérrez said as he accepted the award. He told how he met Barrow during his graduate studies at a campus event more than 40 years previously and spent time talking with him after his speech. 

“We don’t realize the importance of role models, of being part of a group where you don’t see anybody like you, whether it’s based on gender, race, sexual orientation or other factors,” Gutiérrez continued. “Lee reaching out to me and saying ‘Good luck, I wish you well’ meant a lot.”

Gutiérrez (pictured at center right, with AEJMC Commission on the Status of Minorities chair Linda Florence Callahan, left, and AEJMC Minorities and Communication division head Ilia Rodriguez) holds appointments in communication and journalism at USC Annenberg and is a professor of American studies and ethnicity in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He has received more than 35 awards for advancing more accurate understanding of the nation's diversity, including national awards from the Asian American Journalists Association, Black College Communication Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, National Association of Multicultural Media Executives, and National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.

“Through the decades, [Gutiérrez] has maintained a commitment to diversity,” Rodriguez said. “He has been a leader, mentor and friend to AEJMC members across the association.”

As a scholar, Gutiérrez has authored or co-authored five books and more than 50 scholarly articles or book chapters, most on racial or technological diversity in media. In 2004 his co-authored book, Racism, Sexism, and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America, received the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Research About Journalism.

Gutiérrez teaches classes on people of color and the news media, Latino news media in the United States, sexual orientation issues in journalism, and journalism history. In 2009, he curated a 24-panel traveling exhibit titled "Voices for Justice: 200 Years of Latino Newspapers in the United States," which traces the "forgotten pages" of U.S. Latino newspapers from 1808 to the present. Outside of academia, he has served as the first executive director of the California Chicano News Media Association and was a senior vice president at the Freedom Forum and Newseum.

During a period of the ceremony for remembering journalists and educators that passed away in the past year, Gutiérrez paid tribute to George Ramos, a fellow Latino journalist and USC educator who died earlier this year. 

Gutiérrez described journalism educators as “ambitious providers,” saying “our ambitions are invested in people and communities that have not gotten a fair share. 

“I’ve been fortunate in being able to play a very small role in a very large movement,” he said.