Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Political Science, 1999-2000

Frank Gilliam Jr., M.A. 1978, Ph.D. 1983
Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Communications and Community, UCLA

Gilliam studies racial and ethnic politics, the mass media, and electoral behavior. He is Founding Director of the Center for Communications and Community at UCLA and supervises its research about the influence of television news coverage and campaign advertising on people's understanding of race, crime, and politics. Professor Gilliam has published widely on minority politics, including articles in the American Political Science and the American Journal of Political Science, his 2001 book Farther to Go: Readings and Cases in African American Politics (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace), and a forthcoming book with Shanto Iyengar on race, television news, and American politics (Princeton University Press). He has taught recently with former Vice President Al Gore at Columbia University, Fisk University, and Middle Tennessee State University. Professor Gilliam has served as the Research Director for the California Commission on the Status of African American Males and has consulted on a wide range of projects for groups like the Aspen Institute, the National Funding Collaborative for Violence Prevention, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Youth Law Center, the MacArthur Foundation, Children Now, Council on Foundations, National Governor's Association, and the Charles S. Benton Foundation. He makes frequent television and radio appearances.