Maxwell Center Initiatives

In addition to the on-going programs that are managed by the Maxwell Center for International Communications, the center is also pursuing a number of region specific and culture specific initiatives that are aligned with its strategic mission and the mission of California State University Fullerton. These include:

Project Americas

The Hispanic Student Initiative

The US-Korea Initiative

The Global Democracy Project

Project Americas:

"Somos Todos Americanos, Todos Debemos Estar Americanistas"- Dean Kazoleas, Director of the Maxwell Center for International Communications

The goal of this project is to increase the strength of relationships between media and communication professionals, scholars, and students in the United States and the countries of the America’s.  Project America’s seeks to work with foreign universities, institutions, and organizations from across the hemisphere to strengthen and develop media and participative systems through the development of communication skills, media systems, curriculum, and/or the facilitation of dialogue and collaboration.  Moreover, this project also focuses on sharing knowledge of the practice of professional communications across a wide variety of professions including journalism, public relations, advertising, and the promotion of entertainment and tourism.  Given the shift towards global digital media, a large portion of this project will focus on the sharing of strategies, techniques and the use of digital tools to reach diverse audiences across cities, countries, and hemispheres.

Funding for this project will support efforts that focus on the development of media and communications techniques and skills for communications professionals, scholars, and students from across North, Central, and South America.  These projects will include:

  • Workshops on digital story telling for journalists, communication professionals, and students.  The Maxwell Center believes that every culture and every person has a story to tell and that in today’s global and digital environment many are not familiar with the tools and techniques to tell their stories using digital media.  This program will support training in the use of new digital technologies to reach audiences through mass and social medias.

  • Journalism and media training for communications professionals that focuses on modern journalistic techniques, “safe” reporting, and the use of digital and social media to better tell their stories and to reach larger audiences. An additional component of this focus area will be collaboration across “American” universities on developing college level curriculum on these topics. Participants will also be offered the opportunity to lecture and speak at California State University Fullerton.

  • Communications & media training programs for public officials and political participants from across the Americas.  The “Global Democracy Project” is being developed to train and empower women and/or candidates from political or ethnic minorities (such as those in Mexico, Central America, Brazil, and the Andes) in western media and communication techniques to better enable them to participate and compete in political processes.

California State University Fullerton is one of the largest universities in the Cal State University system with an enrollment of over 36,000 students. It has been recognized as one of US. News top six public universities in the Western US (masters only), and by Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education as ranking 1st in California and 4th in the nation among top universities awarding bachelor’s degrees to Hispanic students. The College of Communications at CSU Fullerton is one of the largest in the nation with over 4000 students, and has been ranked No. 1 by Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education for bachelor’s degrees in Communications and Journalism awarded to Hispanic students.

The Hispanic Student Initiative:

This initiative seeks to build on the strengths of the students at California State University Fullerton, a large number of which (35%) are of Hispanic descent. California State University Fullerton has been consistently ranked as one of the leading schools in granting degrees to Hispanic students, and is designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution. These students, especially those enrolled in the College of Communications are highly skilled and many are fleunt in spanish. This initiative seeks to recruit these students into programs where they can use their cultural and language skills to make a difference locally, nationally, and globally. Among these initiatives include programs that:

    • Recruit Hispanic students for communications specfic study abroad programs, especially those that are media and/or campaign oriented. This program will target countries with Latin cultures and where Spanish is one of the predominant languages.

    • Recruit Hispanic students to pursue masters and doctoral degrees in public relations. This program seeks to draw on CSUF's large pool of talented Hispanic students to address several crtical needs in American academia, including the need for an increased number of Hispanic faculty and a need for an increased number of public relations faculty. Statistics show that on many campuses in the United States there are an increasingly larger number of Hispanic students, but on many campuses less than 4% of the faculty are of Hispanic descent. Moreover, there is also a critical nationwide shortage of public relations faculty which is due in part to a limited number of doctoral programs and a limited number of candidates who pursue careers in academia. This goal of this program seeks to recruit Hispanic communications students to pursue masters of arts degrees in communications and subequent doctoral degrees. This program will acheive these goals by using focused recruiting efforts, supplying students with financial assistance through assitantships, mentoring, specialized course programming, as well as assistance in building networks among academic communication professionals.

United States-Korea Initiative:

This initative seeks to strengthen ties between the United States and South Korea as well between California State University and the large Korean population that resides in Orange County by creating exchange, transfer, and special program relationships with Korean colleges, universities, and other education, culutral or business based organizations. This initiative is comprised of several programs including:

    • The DIMA program which is designed to build high level relationships with DIMA, The Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts located in Anseong, South Korea. DIMA's programs, faculty, and facilities provide a compliment to the communication oriented programs offered by the College of Communications. This programs seeks to build student exchange and transfer opportunities, faculty exchange opportunities, as well as joint ventures in the areas of film, broadcast communications, interactive communications, and media management.

    • The Korean-American intercultural student exchange which is a program that is designed to recruit Korean-American students from California State University Fullerton, and eventually the Orange County California area to pursue a 1-2 year study abroad experience at DIMA in South Korea. Additional programs may include intercultural exchange programs for high school students and/or intercultural exchange programs for students of film, media, music, or the arts.

 The Global Democracy Project:

The Maxwell Center for International Communications is seeking support and pursuing projects that are committed to increasing political participation and strengthening democracy in emerging democracies or in countries that are struggling to build new democratic systems. This initiative seeks to work with foreign universities, institutions, and organizations to strengthen and develop participative systems through the development of communication skills, media systems, curriculum, and/or the facilitation of dialogue and collaboration. These projects include:

    • Communications & Media Training programs for public officials and political participants from across the globe. A specific project is also being developed to train and empower women and/or candidates from political minorities in western media and communication techniques to better enable them to participate and compete in political processes.

    • Workshops on digital story telling for high school and/or college students from diverse and/or highly polarized parts of the world including Asia (China, North & South Korea), The Middle East (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Syria), and Latin America.

    • Sponsored Conferences & Workshops on public diplomacy, conflict resolution, and peace communications.