Department of Advertising makes strides in diversifying industry

AUSTIN, Texas—June 13, 2008—Steps taken by the Department of Advertising at The University of Texas at Austin to boost minority enrollment in graduate programs are proving effective in increasing diversity in the advertising industry.

The department, which has the only doctorate program in advertising in the United States, has increased minority graduate student recruitment efforts in recent years. As a result, three African American women—Nakeisha Ferguson, Yuvay Meyers and Danielle Amber Parker—earned their doctorate degrees in May and will enter academia at other institutions, promoting diversity at the front of the classroom. Two more African American women are expected to earn their doctorate degrees from the department this summer.

This is an important milestone in an industry facing pressure to diversify in order to reflect the changing face of American consumers. There has been significant negative publicity in recent years over a New York City Human Rights Commission study showing that only 2 percent of the upper echelon of the New York City advertising industry was African American in 2006.

“What is often overlooked is the symbiotic relationship between valuing diversity in the classroom through more diverse faculty and students and valuing diversity in the profession due to greater diversity in the talent working in advertising agencies and corporate departments,” said Jerome D. Williams, F.J. Heyne Centennial Professor in the Department of Advertising with a joint appointment in the Center for African and African American Studies. “This in turns leads to advertising strategies and programs that are more sensitive to the needs of consumers from diverse backgrounds.”

According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, the combined buying power of African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans will exceed $1.5 trillion by 2009, accounting for 14.1 percent of the nation’s total buying power—triple its 1990 level.

Williams joined the Department of Advertising in 2003 as the only African American faculty member. He soon recruited a second African American faculty member, Geraldine R. Henderson. The two, recognized as two of the leading scholars in the country conducting research in the realm of multicultural advertising, worked closely with Gary Wilcox, director of graduate studies in the department, to recruit graduate students from diverse backgrounds.

When Williams joined the faculty, the department had only two African American graduate students—both in the master’s program—and a handful of Latino graduate students. Those numbers have grown to 19 African American graduate students, including 13 in the masters program and six doctorate students, and 22 Latino graduate students, including 20 in the masters program and two doctorate students. Williams and Henderson have chaired or co-chaired four of the five committees of the African American women receiving advertising doctorate degrees this year.

The department’s recruiting efforts include offering paid research internships, awarded through the university’s Graduate School, to help faculty members bring outstanding graduate students to campus and mentor them, and involvement at graduate student conferences, such as the Lone Star Graduate Diversity Colloquium.

The Black Advertising Graduate Student Association, for which Williams serves as faculty advisor, was recently established and has been instrumental in attracting other African American students to the program.

At the undergraduate level, three advertising students have been named “Most Promising Minority Students” by the American Advertising Federation in the past two years, and the department placed the highest number of students—24—in the Multicultural Advertising Intern Program this summer, a highly recognized summer internship program to bring diversity into the advertising industry by placing multicultural students at advertising and public relations agencies across the nation each year.

###

Contacts:
Erin Geisler
512-475-8071

Dr. Jerome D. Williams
512-471-7302