Jannette L. Dates PH.D.

Jannette L. Dates, Ph.D.
Dean, School of Communications
Howard University, Washington, D.C.

As dean of Howard University’s School of Communications, Jannette L. Dates, Ph.D., is charged with preparing a next generation of communicators to succeed in a technology-driven world. Dates joined Howard in 1981 as a faculty member in the Department of Radio, Television and Film. She became acting dean of the School of Communications in 1993 and dean in 1996, a role she took on with a mission to: “Send out stellar students who can compete with anyone from any other institution and can hold their own.”

“I never had a job that I wouldn’t go back to in a minute,” says Dates, who began her career in education in the Baltimore City Public School System in 1958. She became a live-television demonstration teacher for the school system and subsequently an assistant professor at Morgan State University. During her tenure at Morgan State, she was a producer, writer and anchor for North Star, a weekly television series featuring local and national African-American entertainment and sports personalities. That experience laid the foundation for her role as a communications educator and commentator. She has been a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, discussing the images of African-Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the mass media. She co-edited the book Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media; wrote chapters for several other books and authored 20 peer-reviewed articles and general publication articles.

Dates earned her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland at College Park, a master’s in education at the Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s in education at Coppin State College. She holds a certificate from Harvard University’s Management Development Program and is a past fellow of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. She was once named “Woman of the Year” by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.