Joseph, Smith Win Top COM Faculty Honors
COM Professors Justin Joseph and Maura Smith.
Justin Joseph and Maura Smith received this year’s top faculty awards from the College of Communication, honoring their work in instruction and advising, respectively.
Joseph, associate professor of the practice in public relations, is the recipient of this year’s Becker Family Teacher-of-the-Year Award, considered the highest honor presented by COM to its professors. The award was established in memory of David Brudnoy, a legend in Boston broadcasting and a professor at COM.
Professor Joseph “is always an enthusiastic volunteer to work with students, whether it is for new teaching assignments or for co-advising PR Lab,” said Dean Mariette DiChristina (COM ’86) during the presentation of the award at this year’s COM convocation ceremony.
Recent Teacher-of-the-Year Award recipients include Noelle Graves, senior lecturer for journalism; Gary Sheffer, the Sandra A. Frazier Professor of Public Relations; and Bill Braudis, assistant professor of film and television.
Smith, master lecturer for film, is the recipient of this year’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Student Advising Award, nominated by COM students for excellence in student advising. Smith has worked as a theatrical director regionally and in New York and as an assistant director at The Paper Mill Playhouse, The Juilliard School, and Carnegie Hall.
This award is made possible through a fund established at the College of Communication by Luci Baines Johnson, a friend and Trustee Emeriti of Boston University, in honor of Johnson’s father, President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Recent Advising Award recipients include Steve Quigley, now professor emeritus for public relations; Doug Gould, professor of the practice in advertising; and Garland Waller, formerly assistant professor of television and the director of the television graduate program.
