The Tenth Anniversary of the Media Ecology Association

So, today, September 4th, is the Tenth Anniversary of the founding of the MEDIA ECOLOGY ASSOCIATION. Ten years ago, Thom Gencarelli and Casey Man Kong Lum came to the Bronx to meet with Susan B. Barnes, who was on the faculty at Fordham University back then, and me, at our offices in Fordham University's Rose Hill campus, in Faculty Memorial Hall, which is technically off-campus, on Belmont Avenue--it's the same avenue that gave rise to Dion and the Belmonts, as in Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love:



But that is besides the point, which is that the four of us planned to meet the evening of September 4th, 1998, in our Department of Communication and Media Studies conference room (Room 433). As luck would have it, Paul Levinson, then a visiting faculty member, was hanging around, so we invited him to join us at our meeting, and the five of us talked it over and voted to form the Media Ecology Association. We decided that Sue Barnes would be the first Executive Secretary, Thom Gencarelli the first Treasurer, Casey Lum the first Vice-President, and I was given the honor of being the first president. I've continued in that office for the past ten years, and will finally be stepping down when my term ends in January.

It's been an amazing ten years, and creating and building the MEA has been a real labor of love. We've come a long way over the past decade, and I think we're all pretty proud of it. Because a Thursday night at the beginning of the school year is not exactly optimal for getting people together, we'll be celebrating with a small group going out to dinner. You can read about our Fifth Anniversary event, which was very special, and view the amazing video that was produced for that occasion, by going to one of my older blog entries: And Now This...

But for now, I have to get going or they'll be calling me late for dinner, so let me just end with...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEA!!!