After an 18-month search process, Lee Huebner is set to be the new School of Media and Public Affairs director.
Huebner is a professor of communication and journalism at Northwestern University. For 14 years, Huebner served as publisher and CEO of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune. The University also announced that Frank Sesno, another final candidate for the position, will become an SMPA faculty member.
Huebner accepted his position on May 19 and will be assuming SMPA’s top post on July 1, while Sesno will join the SMPA faculty in the fall and begin teaching classes in the spring. Huebner will replace Steven Livingston, who has served as the interim director of SMPA since 2004.
Huebner said he is “honored and excited about this great opportunity” and that he is “looking forward to digging in” once he arrives in Washington for good in July.
“Most importantly I want to be open and flexible and do a lot of listening, but it is also important to take risks and act with a spirit of adventure,” Huebner said.
A native of Sheboygan, Wis., Huebner was an undergraduate at Northwestern University and received his master’s and doctarate degrees in history from Harvard University. Huebner also worked as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Writing and Research staff during the Nixon Administration.
Donald Lehman, executive vice president of academic affairs, said the University was looking for a director of the school who could straddle the practitioner and academic realms of media and public affairs, as well as act as the top administrator of one of GW’s nine schools.
A six-member search committee was in charge of fielding applicants for the position and recommended a list of the final three candidates to the University in March, Lehman said.
The search process began about a year and a half ago when GW launched a search for a new director. The University came close to naming a director, but neither of the two finalists in the first search was named to the post. Veteran NBC and CBS correspondent Marvin Kalb withdrew himself from consideration, and former North Carolina State University professor Robert Entman was named an SMPA faculty member in spring 2005.
Though William Frawley, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences dean, said earlier this year that the announcement should come as soon as the end of April, Lehman said “it has simply taken this long for individuals to accept their offers and work out announcements with their current institutions.”
As director of SMPA, Huebner will build on a “foundation” of change that has occurred in the schools revamped curriculum and majors, Lehman said. Over the last two years, a task force has recommended and implemented changes to the school including phasing out the electronic media major and revamping the journalism major.
Lehman said the changes will be “the base for the continuing development of SMPA into a top-tier media and public affairs school for the 21st century.”
“Dr. Huebner will be working to continue the implementation process for the new directions of the SMPA derived from the task force report and the implementation plan,” Lehman said.
Frank Sesno, who will teach undergraduate and graduate courses as a faculty member in SMPA, is leaving his current role as a professor of public policy and communications at George Mason University. He is also an Emmy-award winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience.
Before becoming a special correspondent to CNN, Sesno worked as a White House correspondent, anchor and Washington Bureau Chief for CNN over the past 18 years.
“Being a part of SMPA will be a blast from day one,” Sesno said. “I’ll get to be around intelligent people, get to teach some and hopefully make a difference.”
