About me
Jason M. Shepard, Ph.D., is a media law scholar, professor and interim dean of the College of Communications at California State University, Fullerton , one of the largest mass communications programs in the United States. His research examines the role of the First Amendment in American democracy, journalism and culture, and his teaching expertise is in journalism and media law, history and ethics. Before academia, Shepard worked as an award-winning journalist in Madison, Wis., and a Teach For America corps member in New York City.
Shepard has been elected four times since 2014 as chair of the Department of Communications, which serves more than 1,500 majors with undergraduate concentrations in journalism, public relations, advertising and entertainment/tourism and graduate concentrations in professional communications, mass communications research and theory, and communications in tourism and entertainment. Shepard has twice successfully overseen his Department’s reaccreditation from the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) and recertification from the Certification in Education for Public Relations (CEPR) from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), in 2015 and 2022.
Shepard’s leadership has been recognized by several university-wide awards. He received Cal State Fullerton's University Leadership Award in 2015. In 2016, Shepard was recognized with the Academic Senate’s Faculty Leadership in Collegial Governance Award . In 2017, he was part of a team that won the University's Teamwork and Collaboration Award for a partnership with Univision and the Latino Communications Initiative. In 2022, the Department received the Equity and Diversity Award from Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).
