The Annenberg Foundation has donated $10 million to the Annenberg School for Communication endowment, administrators announced yesterday.
The money will benefit the school's Project for Global Communication Studies, established in 2004 to promote Penn's involvement in global communication research.
"This is an important part of Penn's increasing efforts to be international," project Director Monroe Price said.
More specifically, the money will be used to fund endeavors from advising governmental institutions and organizing conferences to researching new communication technologies.
"This [donation] allows us to take the work we've already started and institutionalize it," Annenberg School Dean Michael Carpini said. "This will make Annenberg more of a player on policy issues that revolve around the role of the media in building democracies."
The school is placing particular emphasis on understanding communication policies and practices in emerging and established democracies.
Carpini said that one of his goals is to examine the ramifications of open media in societies that have traditionally restricted free expression, as have some in Eastern Europe and South America.
Moreover, the discussion about free media extends further to public or private ownership, which has interesting repercussions for the countries in which they operate.
To gather research on these topics, the global communication studies project sends many of its graduate students to work overseas in cities like London, Budapest and Beijing.
The $10 milllion gift will help to fund these trips.
"Our graduate students are studying freedom of information laws, media policy in Iraq and communication in Mexico," Price said.
"This endowment will really let Annenberg intensify its leadership in communication by giving it an agenda in the international realm," Price added.
The Annenberg Foundation is a philanthropic organization founded by Penn graduate Walter Annenberg, who died in 2002.
Annenberg was instrumental in the communication school's creation in 1958, and the Annenberg Foundation donated $100 million to it in 2002.
This gift is the foundation's second made to Penn in the last week. The organization announced a $5 million grant to Penn's School of Nursing on Feb. 2 to help the school renovate its main building.
