Loren Ghiglione, former dean of Northwestern’s Medill School, is winner of the 2017 Barrow Award. Both in the profession and academia, Ghiglione for 45 years has been a constant force for diversifying staffs and content. He’s helped African-Americans, Latinos, Natives and others get into position to write stories, teach classes and do research. He will appear in CSM’s Thursday 1:30 p.m. session in Chicago on the current state of diversity in media employment, too.

“Wow!” was Ghiglione’s reaction when informed of the honor. “I’m overwhelmed.”

The Medill prof, retiring after this academic year, has worked since the early 1970s in every venue where he’s been employed to advance qualified candidates from historically underrepresented groups. That’s stretched from African-Americans in newspapers to Native American faculty at Northwestern.

CSM’s graduate studies coordinator, Osita Iroegbu, is the recipient of the Barrow CTM Scholarship. Her outstanding research efforts toward improving the lives of the marginalized and clear plans for work won over the committee formed to decide on the recipient of the award. The Virginia Commonwealth University student is ABD as of this spring and seems well on her way to receiving her doctoral degree.

Iroegbu has been helping the commission with its social media in working alongside the chairman and has spread the word of CSM’s efforts and role to her fellow graduate students. Dues for them are just $5, half the usual $10.

The Minorities and Communication Division and the commission jointly fund and select the recipients for each honor.