Kopenhaver, Lillian

Kopenhaver, Lillian Graduate Faculty

Positions

Professor, Communication , School of Communication and Journalism

kopenhav@fiu.edu

Twitter

biography

Dr. Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver is executive director of the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication and dean emeritus and professor of the SJMC. She was named the Outstanding Woman in Journalism and Mass Communication Education for 2009 by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The award recognizes a woman who has represented fellow women in the academy through excellence and high standards in journalism education. A nationally known expert and researcher on the First Amendment, the scholastic and collegiate press, and the role and status of women in communication, she is the author of more than 115 scholarly articles, monographs and books.
She is past president of AEJMC, College Media Advisers, the Student Press Law Center, and the Community College Journalism Association. She holds the Wells Memorial Key from the Society of Professional Journalists, its highest honor, and only the second woman in the history of the organization to win that award at that time, the CMA Distinguished Service Award, the AEJMC Newspaper Division Distinguished Service Award, the AEJMC Outstanding Leadership Award, the FIU Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Torch Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Rowan University. She was inducted into the National Hall of Fame of both College Media Advisers and the Community College Journalism Association.
Kopenhaver was honored in 2011 by FIU President Mark Rosenberg with the FIU Distinguished University Service Medallion as an “exemplary role model” of the industry and the community and for demonstrating “a vision, initiative and drive that have been instrumental for almost four decades in the development of the university and the school.” In 2020 she was awarded the Lifetime Service Award from Rowan University.
Kopenhaver joined FIU in 1973 and rose through the ranks to become dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2003, a post she held for nearly nine years. Over the course of her tenure, Kopenhaver was instrumental in creating programs and opportunities for students, particularly women. In what has historically been an industry largely dominated by men, Kopenhaver was frequently one of the few women to hold leadership positions and be part of the decision-making process within the communications fields.