The Arthur W. Page Center is a research center at the Penn State College of Communications dedicated to the study and advancement of ethics and responsibility in corporate communication and other forms of public communication.

Page, the longtime vice president for public relations at AT&T, is often regarded as the founder of the modern practice of corporate public relations. He also was a noted educator, publisher, and adviser to several U.S. presidents. Page was the first person in a public relations position to serve as an officer and director of a major corporation and, in that capacity, was widely known for management according to the Page Principles, his guidelines for ethical and effective communication with the public and for responsible corporate behavior. The Center seeks to foster a modern understanding and application of the Page Principles by supporting innovative research, educational, or public service projects in a wide variety of academic disciplines and professional fields.

The Page Center was created in 2004 through a leadership gift from Lawrence G. Foster, a distinguished Penn State alumnus and retired corporate vice president for public relations at Johnson & Johnson. In 2006, the Center received a major grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to establish and endow a research and education program in ethical leadership -- including support for the Legacy Scholar program.

The Foundation was established by Robert Wood Johnson, who built Johnson & Johnson from a small family business into the world’s largest health and medical care product company and one renown for its high standards of social responsibility. Known as the “General” because of his service in World War II as a brigadier general, Johnson wrote the Johnson & Johnson Credo, his principles of corporate responsibility and probably the most widely-known and widely-regarded statement of ethics in the corporate world. This new initiative funded by the Foundation is named The General Robert Wood Johnson Program in Ethical Leadership and seeks to build upon and perpetuate the philosophy of the Credo and to pass it along to future generations of leaders, students and academics.

Other major grants and gifts to support the Center and its scholar program have been received from the James E. and Diane W. Burke Foundation, David R. Clare & Margaret Clare Foundation, Richard B. Sellars, Robert Wood Johnson 1962 Charitable Trust, and AT&T Foundation.

Members of the Center’s Advisory Board in addition to Foster are Edward M. Block, retired senior vice president of public relations at AT&T; John A. Koten, retired senior vice president of corporate communications at Ameritech; Roger Bolton, past president of the Arthur W. Page Society and senior counselor APCO Worldwide; Marilyn Laurie, President Laurie Consulting, Inc.; and Douglas A. Anderson, dean of the Penn State College of Communications.  John S. Nichols, associate dean for graduate studies and research at the College of Communications, serves as director of the Center and as an ex officio member of the Board.

The Page Center also houses an archive for Page’s previously uncollected papers, memorabilia and related research materials about ethics in public communication and corporate responsibility.  As part of this archive function, the Center is collecting oral histories of senior corporate communication executives and others who personify the Page Principles.  It is the goal of the Center to make these and an array of other research materials widely available in a variety of electronic formats to scholars and professionals.  Further, the Page Center has launched a project for the development of curriculum and pedagogical approaches to foster ethics in public relations.

This year the Page Center will award up to $75,000 in grants of $1,000 to $25,000 to scholars and professionals in all career stages to study integrity in public communication. Last year, the third year of the program, 17 academic researchers from 12 universities in the United States and abroad were awarded a total of $65,000 in grants.

Recipients of these grants will be designated either a Page Legacy Scholar or Robert Wood Johnson Legacy Scholar.

The themes for this year’s call for proposals are:
-- Ethics in public communication
-- Role of public relations in fostering corporate responsibility
-- How company credos and codes of ethics affect corporate behavior. Do they positively influence the way that some corporations respond to ethical dilemmas or matters of public importance? If so, why? Are they largely window dressing for other companies? Why? What accounts for the differences, and what are the implications?
-- Women and minorities in public relations. What is the status of women and minorities in public relations? What challenges do they face? How can opportunities in the field be expanded for them?
-- Curriculum development in and pedagogical approaches to ethics in public relations
-- Other areas of Page’s or Johnson’s legacy, including political communication, public opinion formation and attitude change, history of public relations, health communication, and international broadcasting

The Center will continue making annual awards in pursuit of its goals.

Page and Johnson Legacy Scholars may come from a variety of academic disciplines and professional fields, including:

• scholars and researchers, either university-based, think-tank or independent,
• doctoral candidates, who will have completed their coursework and examinations and are at the dissertation-writing stage during the year of the award,
• and practitioners of public communication, such as corporate or non-profit public relations professionals, journalists, and editors.

Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply.

Proposals from any perspective, paradigm or methodological orientation are welcome. Joint applications and collaborative projects are especially encouraged.

Award winners in previous years are eligible for additional awards.

Page and Johnson Legacy Scholars are selected on a competitive basis by the Center’s Academic Policy and Selection Committee upon recommendations by experts from Penn State faculty, other universities, and the professional community. The selection criteria are:

• project’s potential for having a significant impact on the knowledge, practice, or public understanding of ethics and responsibility in public communication,

• applicant’s record of or potential for scholarly or professional achievement,

• significance and feasibility of the project and quality of its design,

• and the likelihood of appropriate and widespread dissemination of the results.

Applicants for Page and Johnson Legacy Scholar Awards should submit three copies of the following:

• Cover page.  The cover page should include the following:
• Title of the proposal
• Name of applicant(s)
• Job title, position or affiliation, name of institution, organization, or business
• E-mail address, phone and fax number
• Contact information for the Office of Sponsored Research at your institution
• Amount of requested funding

• Project proposal.  A description (not more than five pages, typed and double-spaced) of the proposed research, educational or service activity and how it furthers the mission of the Page Center to foster ethics and responsibility in public communication. Appropriate appendices that support the proposed project may be included. Applicants may wish to attach an optional selected bibliography of scholarly or other works, other than the applicant’s own, that place the project in its intellectual framework (not more than two pages, typed and single-spaced).

• Project abstract.  An abstract or summary of the proposed project that includes the applicant’s name, project title, and amount of funding requested.

• Curriculum vitae or professional resume.

• Budget.  The amount of the grant being requested and a short description – preferably by line item – of how it will be expended.  The grants may be used for legitimate scholarly purposes approved by the Center, such as field research, purchase of research materials, release time and assistants, but not for any commercial purpose.

The Center does not allow the following costs: overhead or F&A costs; fringe benefits; any expenses to attend conferences; publication costs; or equipment.

Budgets should be realistic and commensurate with the project proposed.  Applicants are strongly encouraged to list only real and necessary costs in the proposed budget. Any request to fund release time should be explicitly linked to the actual completion of the proposed project.The Page Center may offer funding at a different level than that requested.

Where applicable, proposals should be processed through the Office of Sponsored Research of the applicant’s institution to avoid lengthy delays in awarding funds.

Applications should be sent to The Arthur W. Page Center, College of Communications, 201 Carnegie Building, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802.  Application materials must be received at the Page Center on or before March 10, 2008.  Applicants will be notified of the selection committee’s decisions by approximately May 26, 2008.

• articles in professional and scholarly journals,
• books and monographs,
• teaching curricula for universities and/or professional workshops,
• op-ed pieces or articles in the popular press,
• electronic media projects,
• lectures, demonstrations, and other public presentations,
• and seminars, workshops or symposia.

For more information on the Page Center and the scholar competition, contact Cinda Kostyak, associate director, The Arthur W. Page Center, College of Communications, 201 Carnegie Building, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, 814-863-6307, or visit http://www.comm.psu.edu/pagecenter.

?Gene Foreman, the retired managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and former president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, is among 17 academics and professionals named Page or Johnson Legacy Scholars and awarded a total of $65,000 in grants to support their work in advancing ethics and responsibility in public communications.

The grants were awarded by the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communications at the Penn State College of Communications as the result of its annual Page and Johnson Legacy Scholar competition.

The grant to Foreman is to support his research and writing of a book titled “The Ethical Journalist: Responsible Decision-Making in the Pursuit of News.” During Foreman’s 25-year tenure at The Inquirer, the newspaper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes. He also was the recipient of numerous individual honors and served on the board of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. After his retirement from The Inquirer, he was appointed the Larry and Ellen Foster Professor of Communications at Penn State, where he taught ethics until his second retirement earlier this year.

The other researchers or research teams who received Scholar grants this year and the titles of their projects are:

• Andrew I. Cohen (Georgia State University) and Jennifer A. Samp (University of Georgia), “The Ethics of Corporate Apologies.”
• Renita Coleman (University of Texas) and Lesa Hatley-Major (Indiana University), “Ethical Health Communication: A Content Analysis of Predominant Ethical Themes in Public Service Advertisements”
• Scott R. Colwell (University of Guelph, Canada), “Market Reaction to Media Reports of Unethical and Irresponsible Corporate Behavior: Does Negative News Really Matter?”
• Aziz Douai (Doctoral Candidate, Penn State University), “International Broadcasting and the Management of World Public Opinion: The Case of al-Hurra Television and the ‘Arab Street’”
• Jennifer Gephart (Doctoral Candidate, Penn State University), “Understanding the Determinants of (Un)ethical Choices: Meta-Analytic Answers to Fundamental Ethics Questions”
• Jerry Goodstein, Amy S. Wharton (Washington State University) and Mary Blair-Loy (University of California – San Diego), “The Role of Publicly Communicated Corporate Mission and Values in Firm Decisions Regarding Pension Fund Changes”
• Lawrence W. Hugenberg and Esther A. Agyman-Budu (Kent State University), “Corporate Social Responsibility: Communication in Action”
• Stacey Frank Kanihan and Kathleen A. Hansen (University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, “Commitment to Social Responsibility and the Role of Communication Managers in the Executive Elite”
• David M. Mayer (University of Central Florida), “How Do Organizations Communicate the Importance of Ethics? An Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Ethical Climate”
• Mark Schwartz (York University, Canada), “Israeli Business Ethics After Enron: Are Codes of Ethics Making Any Difference?”

In the third year of the competition, the Page Center received 50 proposals from researchers at 45 academic institutions and three professional organizations in 26 states and 6 foreign countries. The researchers represented a wide array of academic disciplines and professional fields and their proposed projects, while mostly on topics related to corporate social responsibility, media ethics, and public relations, also included international communications, health communications, and curriculum development.

The deadline for the next round of grant proposals is March 10, 2008.

Please check back soon.