Journalism & Electronic Media Professor and former director (2006 – 2016), Peter Gross, retired at the end of January after 12 and one-half years of distinguished service to CCI and UT. Upon his retirement, Gross will become a Professor Emeritus.
During Gross’ time as director of the School, JEM expanded and improved its curriculum, facilities, faculty/staff and student media. Particular accomplishments include: establishing a converged journalism curriculum, building a converged newsroom, hiring a number of outstanding new faculty and staff members, obtaining a number of grants from foundations to provide specialized programming, and providing students with new/improved student media options through the establishment of the Tennessee Journalist (TNJN.com) and by taking over the management of The Volunteer Channel (TVC).
Gross also worked with the U.S. Department of State to bring a number of Edward R. Murrow international journalism groups to campus making UT one of only a small group of universities in the US to host the Murrow journalists in multiple years.
His scholarly work includes: seven books as author or co-author, two textbooks and two co-edited books. He has published over 160 book chapters and articles in American and European academic, professional journals and general circulation media. He is currently a columnist for TransitionsOnline, a Czech-based journal covering politics, economics, society, culture and media in Eastern and Central Europe.
Gross has served on the editorial boards of 15 journals and has presented papers at scholarly conferences and workshops around the world. He has served as a reviewer/advisor for a number of organizations in the US and Europe.
In 2009, the State of Romania awarded Gross one of its highest national awards, the “Order of Merit in Education,” Commander Grade. The President of Romania confers the award, by decree, for “unusual merit in the development of education of different types, levels and forms of organization, and in research, or (for) contributing to establishing relationships between foreign educational institution and Romanian ones.”
The University of Bucharest, Romania, awarded Gross the Doctor Honoris Causa in 2005 for his contributions to Eastern European media studies. In 2009, the University of West Timisoara, Romania, also awarded him the Doctor Honoris Causa for his contributions to Eastern European media studies and his role in establishing the university’s journalism program. The Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, accorded him the Professor Honoris Causa in 2018.
He is a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and served as Chair of Teaching Standards, Chair of the Markham International Student Paper Competition and Chair of Professional Freedom and Responsibility for the association’s International Communication Division. He is/was a member of the European Communication Research and Education Association, the European Network for Trans-Integration Research, the South East European Studies Association, the Society for Romanian Studies, the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, COST A30, a research group sponsored by the European Union, and the International Communication Association. He was on the Board of Directors of the American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as its Vice President, 1997-2001.
Gross holds a Master’s and PhD from the University of Iowa.