Title: Professor of Journalism, University of North Texas
Bland brings more than 25 years of media experience to her role as a journalism professor today. With research interests in media management, marketing, digital and social media and diversity, her classes teach students how to critically evaluate media portrayals of gender, race, class, disability and sexuality, as well as how to cover and cope with crisis and trauma while reporting. At UNT, Bland also served a five-year term as dean of the Mayborn School of Journalism until spring 2018. Under her leadership, the school earned the 2016 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Equity and Diversity Award, and student enrollment rose more than 25 percent in three years. Previously, she served as a professor in the division of journalism at Florida A&M University. Bland’s commitment to preparing the next generation of journalists is evident in the millions of dollars in funding she has secured through grants or from philanthropic gifts for initiatives such as the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference or the Scripps-Howard Foundation Internship and Scholarship Grant and the National Association of Black Journalists Multimedia Short Course at FAMU.
