The Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU is receiving $2.55 million from two prominent Baton Rouge media families that “will transform the school,” says Dean Jerry Ceppos.
Charles and Carole Lamar are contributing $1.35 million to expand the Lamar Family Visiting Scholars program. Dina Manship Planche, Richard Manship, Douglas Manship Jr., David Manship, Hunter Manship and Jake Manship are giving $1.2 million to complete the nation’s first endowed chair in media diversity.
“An outside team of experts just described the Manship School as being in the ranks of the country’s strongest mass communication programs. These gifts guarantee that we will become even better,” Ceppos says in a prepared statement. “These gifts directly contribute to our signature goal of teaching and conducting research at the intersection of media and public affairs. They also help us with our growing interest in using technology to deliver and dig out information.”
The Lamar family initially funded one visiting scholar as a way of bringing new voices to teaching and research at the school for one year at a time. The first scholar was Steve Buttry, who later became Manship’s director of student media. The second scholar is Paige Brown Jarreau, a post-doctoral researcher who is teaching science writing this semester.
Charles Lamar is chairman and chief executive officer of Woodlawn Investments Inc. He is a former director of Lamar Advertising and formerly served as the company’s general counsel and secretary.
The new Lamar gift will increase the amount of the stipend for the original visiting-scholar position, which will be dedicated to a mass communication practitioner. The new gift also will create a second visiting scholar, who will be a post-doctoral researcher and teacher.
The gift from the Manships, whose family named the school in 1985, provides the funds to complete the Douglas Manship Sr.-Dori J. Maynard Chair in Race, Media and Cultural Literacy.
“At a time when state funding is being cut continually, it is important that people step forward to help,” says Richard Manship, chief executive officer and president of Manship Media, in a prepared statement.
The Manship family owned all or part of The Advocate for 104 years before selling it to John Georges in 2013. The family also owns WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge and KRGV-TV in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
