Jerome D. Williams, the F. J. Heyne Centennial Professor in Communication at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the 2009 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Outstanding Marketing Teacher Award–one of the most prestigious awards a marketing educator can receive.
Williams, one of the first professors in the country to teach courses in multicultural marketing and advertising, teaches undergraduate courses in multicultural marketing, advertising and black representation and consumer discrimination in the marketplace as well as graduate courses in multicultural issues in advertising.
Since joining the Department of Advertising faculty in 2003, Williams has worked to increase enrollment among African American and Latino students in the graduate programs. Those numbers have grown to about 20 African American graduate students, including six Ph.D. students, and 22 Latino graduate students. In 2008, five African Americans earned their doctor’s degree from the department, representing 100 percent of the output of African American advertising Ph.D.s in the U.S. Williams chaired or served on the dissertation committee of each one.
He has received teaching awards from almost every institution where he has taught full-time or been a visiting professor, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Howard University, the National University of Singapore, Penn State University and The University of Texas at Austin.
He will receive the award in May at the annual AMS conference in Baltimore.