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October 14, 2006

William Dorman to present Livingston Lecture Oct. 17

William Dorman, professor of government and journalism at Sacramento State, will deliver Sacramento State’s prestigious John C. Livingston Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 3 p.m. in the University Ballroom. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dorman, who plans to retire next May after a 40-year teaching career at Sacramento State, will present a talk titled “A Teaching Life: Values Then and Now.” His talk will focus on the man for whom the lecture series is named, John C. Livingston, who was known as an inspiration to both faculty and students.

The Livingston Lecture is one of the top awards for faculty at Sacramento State. The annual lecture, organized by the Faculty Senate, recognizes a faculty member who has played an active role in the life of the University and has shown strong commitment to students while remaining active in creative and scholarly work. Dorman is the first Sacramento State professor to be twice selected to deliver the Livingston Lecture. He was first named in 1995.

Dorman has developed a national reputation as one of the few academics working in the area of mass media and its relationship to American defense and foreign policy. He has written extensively on foreign affairs and on the performance of the media for publications ranging from the Columbia Journalism Review to the World Policy Journal. Dorman was a member of the 1990-91 Social Science Research Council's panel on the Press and Foreign Policy, which produced one of the most highly regarded studies of the 1991 war with Iraq titled "Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War." Dorman received the California State University system's most prestigious honor, the Wang Family Excellence Award, in 2002. The honor is given to only four faculty annually in the CSU system.

John C. Livingston, the subject of Dorman’s talk, was a professor of government at Sacramento State from 1954 until his death in 1981. As a member of the faculty, Livingston chaired the Department of Government for many years and served as acting dean of the then School of Arts and Sciences from 1971 to 1972. He was chair of the Faculty Senate on campus in 1970 and helped establish the statewide Academic Senate. Known as a charismatic and principled scholar, Livingston was a legend among his faculty colleagues, Dorman recalled. "He cared very deeply and was very passionate about issues such as academic freedom, shared governance and civil rights," he said.

For more information, contact the Public Affairs office at (916) 278-6156.

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