2019 Gumbo final - Book - Page 90
Teacher of the Year
Mass Comm Professor named
Teacher of the Year
Not many professors give you their personal cell phone number,
make you cry tears of joy and help you plan an event with over
700 attendees. Jinx Broussard was named teacher of the year for
doing that and more for her students.
Mass communication professor Jinx Broussard won the 2018
Scripps Howard Foundation Teacher of the Year Award, which
recognizes excellence in innovative teaching, mentoring of
students, leading the faculty and engaging the classroom.
“I just feel like I’m doing my job every day,” Broussard said. “I’m
getting this award for doing what I wake up every morning and
look forward to doing.”
Broussard is regarded as a pioneer in the classroom, using a
service-learning curriculum that includes students creating agency
names and logos before creating and implementing campaigns
for local nonprofit organizations. Her work with students has led
to national organ donation awareness for the Louisiana donor
registry.
Public relations campaigns produced by Broussard’s students for
Donate Life Louisiana have won two first place national awards
and one second place national award since 2014.
“I try to create an atmosphere just like the work atmosphere,”
Broussard said. “It’s not just that we’re doing this on paper. We’re
doing this for real.”
Broussard also gives each student her personal cell phone
number, saying that PR professionals must work in real time, so she
wants to help her students in real time.
Broussard started her teaching career as an adjunct professor
at Dillard University while also working as press secretary to the
mayor and director of public information, teaching a beginning
news writing class. She taught three classes part-time before
transferring to LSU in 2006 to be a full-time professor.
“I just love to see the students’ eyes brighten when they learn
something new or when they write a really good lede or when I
send them out to interview someone,” Broussard said. “I just felt
really good about that.”
Broussard also tries to make personal relationships with her
students. One student, who cried in fear on the first day of class
eight years ago, later led her PR team and planned an event for
organ donation awareness with over 700 attendees.
“At the conclusion of the course, the young woman asked me to
step outside the class,” Broussard said. “She confided that she
even wrote a blog about her experience and its impact on her
journey from student to PR professional. With that exchange and a
bear hug, I knew I had done my job.”
Broussard was nominated for the award by the Manship School
of Mass Communication’s administration and did not know of the
nomination until she won. Broussard also won the LSU Center for
Community Engagement, Learning and Leadership Happy Award
and the Guido H. Stempel III Award for Research in Journalism and
Mass Communication in the same week.
“I’m not doing this for any awards,” Broussard said. “I would do this
day in and day out just to have [my students] go out there and get
good jobs. But more so go out and make a difference in your lives,
in others’ lives and make a difference in the world. I’m not teaching
to get awards.”
The award will be presented at the 2019 AEJMC Toronto
Conference and at the Scripps Howard School of Journalism in
Cincinnati on April 18.
Story // Lara Nicholson
Photo // Isabella Allen
Design // Rachel Hurt
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LSU professor Jinx Broussard speaks at the panel Resistance in the Digital Age on
Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, in the Holliday Forum of the Journalism Building
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