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“Before I moved to New York City, I lived in Huntsville, Alabama,” explains Dyson Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Melvin Williams, PhD. While still living in Huntsville, Williams’ hardcore sports fanatic barber would regularly have ESPN playing on the television. One day, when Williams was in for a haircut, he was able to catch Stephen A. Smith vs. LaVar Ball on ESPN’s First Take.

“I remember sitting back in the chair and being captivated by the exchange—this Black father directly advocating for his son,” said Williams. “It made me think of my own father and the media agenda building theory.”

Williams is referring to the media agenda building theory outlined by Gladys and Kurt Lang in the 1980s, which lays out a six-step process that helps explain the often-reciprocal relationship between the mass media, prominent issues, and public figures ability to comment on said issues. In other words, it is a framework for understanding how individuals can manipulate the mechanisms of media to promote their own agenda.

If you haven’t heard of LaVar Ball yet, just wait—you will. He’s become a household name in recent years. Through constant promotion and advocacy for his sons Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo, the launch of shoe and apparel company Big Baller Brand, media feuds with celebrities including President Trump, and a Facebook reality show, LaVar Ball has arguably established the Balls as basketball’s “First Family.”

Following the experience in the barbershop, Williams contributed a piece for the Huffington Post about Ball and Black fatherhood, which received considerable attention and confirmed to Williams that he was perhaps on to something bigger. “I thought, ok, you’ve written an opinion piece, now it’s time to do a research project,” said Williams.

Williams and his co-researcher, Matthew J. Cotton, got to work, conducting a critical discourse analysis of 50 televised interviews of Ball on CBS Sports, CNN, ESPN, and Fox Sports from 2016 to 2017. Their aim was to examine the intersections of agenda building, Black fatherhood, celebrity culture, and sport communication, by investigating how Ball built a media agenda on behalf of his sons.

In an award-winning research paper co-published by Williams titled “Better Than Steph Curry and More Profitable Than LeBron James: An Analysis of LaVar Ball’s Agenda Building of the Ball Brothers,” Williams argues that through strong adherence to media agenda building theory, Ball has been able to address class inequities facing Black athletes in amateur and professional sports, and has refuted deadbeat-dad stereotypes facing Black fathers.

Williams found that whether intentionally or unintentionally, Ball followed all six steps of Lang and Lang’s media agenda building theory. In other words, Ball was able to use the media coverage he received and created to his advantage—and by doing so, was able to promote his personal agenda while also countering a number of stereotypes faced by both Black athletes and Black fathers.

“LaVar Ball led a spirited discussion about sports media’s preference in highlighting Black mothers and absentee fathers,” said Williams. “There has been quite a coded racial discussion that has been permeated in mass media. ‘This person grew up without a father and grew up poor.’ There was a rags-to-riches narrative he was intentional in debunking.”

To support this conclusion, Williams cites a number of quotes by Ball throughout the paper that indeed suggest that Ball was intentional in countering such narratives. Just to cite one example, Williams includes the following quote from Ball, from a 2017 ESPN video:

“Here’s the thing. They didn’t interview Kevin Durant’s dad, LeBron’s dad, Dwayne Wade’s dad, and Derrick Rose’s dad. Now you got a father who has been there, because you’re used to, ‘Hey, my baby’s good.’ And all you have to do is be comfortable with the mom and do what you want with their sons. I’m not going to back up! I’ve been in my son’s life all this time,” said Ball.

Throughout the paper, Williams and Cotton cite a number of different topics Ball often discussed—for example, sports apparel companies and the fact that athletes often don’t have ownership of their signature shoe—and how Ball was intentional in debunking a pre-existing narrative, and advancing the conversation in a way that benefited his media agenda and his shoe and apparel company, Big Baller Brand.

“There’s a history of Black athletes being exploited by athletic brands, their images being used by athletic brands, and them reaping far less benefits,” said Williams. “In the case of Big Baller Brand, it is largely just LaVar Ball. The family had an opportunity to establish a brand and maintain sole ownership.”

While the relationship between Ball and his sons, specifically in the realm of businesses, certainly has its fair share of criticisms and complications (to cite two examples, Ball’s eldest son Lonzo has long had a contentious relationship with Big Baller Brand, and his youngest son LaMelo, a top pick in the recent NBA draft, has vocally stated that he does not want to be a figurehead of Big Baller Brand, and actually signed an endorsement deal with Puma) there is no question that LaVar Ball was able to galvanize much of the media attention he has received to shed light and counter pernicious stereotypes often latent in sports media.

“He humanized his children as Black athletes, and especially in a media climate where Black athletes are often described in overtly physical terms. He highlighted their intellect and their multi-layered personalities. This passion that Black fathers have for their children has always existed. What makes this case unique is you have a Black father who is intentionally pushing himself to the forefront of geopolitical and sports media,” said Williams.

For their work, Williams and Cotton received the 2020 Outstanding Journal Article Award from The National Communication Association's African-American Communication and Culture Division.

Sands, executive chair of Constellation Brands, succeeds Mark Besca, who served as chair since 2013

NEW YORK & PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. (June 3, 2021) – Rob Sands, executive chair of Constellation Brands and a graduate of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, has been named chair of the Pace University Board of Trustees, President Marvin Krislov today announced.

Mr. Sands succeeds Mark M. Besca, who is completing an eight-year term as chair and will remain on the board. Mr. Sands, who has been on the board since 2018, begins his term as chair on July 1, 2021.

“Rob Sands is a visionary business leader and a proud Pace alumnus,” said President Krislov. “He has been an essential member of our Board of Trustees for the past three years, and I’m incredibly pleased he has agreed to serve as our Board chair. I must also extend my deepest thanks to my friend Mark Besca, who is stepping down as chair after eight years of dedicated service, and I’m gratified that he’ll remain on the Board as a trustee.”

The transition takes place at an exciting time at Pace University. It is adding 12 new online graduate programs that align with growing market demands; remaining hyper-focused on experiential learning, career readiness, diversity and inclusion, and providing a strong return on investment to its students while investing significantly in its nationally acclaimed programs such as its School of Performing Arts, College of Health Professions, Seidenberg School of Computer Information Systems, and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law, which this year was ranked as the No. 1 environmental law program in the country.

All of these strategic investments are helping Pace continue to fullfil its mission of Opportunitas, or creating opportunities that empower its diverse student body.

“I am honored to be named chair of Pace University’s Board of Trustees and eager to work with my colleagues on creating opportunities and providing access to education for ambitious, dedicated students,” said Mr. Sands. “I’m also grateful to Mark Besca for his leadership, continued support and dedication to Pace University.”

Mr. Sands is currently Constellation’s executive chair where he is responsible for providing strategic leadership, working with the board of directors and the chief executive officer to establish long-range goals, strategies, plans and policies.

He first joined Constellation in 1986, serving in a number of roles with increasing responsibility including executive vice president and general counsel and chief executive officer of Constellation Brands. Mr. Sands was named company president and CEO in 2007 and served in that role for 12 years. He is board chairman of the New York Kitchen, the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce and ROC2025. In addition to serving on Pace University’s board, he is a member of the boards of the Rochester Regional Health System, UR Thompson Health and Boca Regional Hospital Foundation.

Mr. Besca, a 1981 graduate of the Lubin School of Business, has been a Pace Trustee since October 2001; his last meeting as board chair will be June 23, 2021.

"I'm very happy to hand over the reins as chair of the Pace Board of Trustees knowing they'll be in the very capable hands of Rob Sands," said Mr. Besca. "It has been an honor and a privilege to serve in this role for eight years, and to help create the kinds of opportunities for today's students that Pace once created for me. I'm looking forward to continuing as a trustee, and to supporting Rob in any way I can."

About Pace University

Pace University has a proud history of preparing its diverse student body for a lifetime of professional success as a result of its unique program that combines rigorous academics and real-world experiences. Pace is ranked the #1 private, four-year college in the nation for upward economic mobility by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights, evidence of the transformative education the University provides. From its beginnings as an accounting school in 1906, Pace has grown to three campuses, enrolling 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in more than 150 majors and programs, across a range of disciplines: arts, sciences, business, health care, technology, law, education, and more. The university also has one of the most competitive performing arts programs in the country. Pace has a signature, newly renovated campus in New York City, located in the heart of vibrant Lower Manhattan, next to Wall Street and City Hall, and two campuses in Westchester County, New York: a 200-acre picturesque Pleasantville Campus and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law in White Plains. Follow us on Twitter or on the Pace News website.

View the full issue of Pace Magazine.

Professor Claudia Green, director of Pace’s Hospitality and Tourism Management program, was faced with a challenge as she prepared to teach her civic engagement and public values course remotely: How would the class build a community project when the students were located around the world? The solution: Use Google Earth and open-source mapping tools to create a database of COVID-19 friendly tourism activities worldwide.

Explore the map

Brian Powell ’21 has a deep passion for helping others. That’s exemplified in his pursuit of a health science major with a concentration in global health, not to mention he’s also on the pre-physician assistant track—all extremely difficult subjects. Powell, though, is eager for the challenge. At Pace, he’s taken on a number of leadership roles including College of Health Professions (CHP) student ambassador for the Student Government Association (SGA), Orientation Leader, and member of the Future Health Care Leaders, the National Residence Hall Honorary Society, and the Residence Hall Association. “Advocating and being a voice for students was always something that I loved to do,” he told us. “I always ensure that everyone’s voices are being heard and find ways to grow and change constructively.”

As a certified medical assistant with a great deal of patient care experience, Powell has worked on the job to build relationships with his patients and collaborate with various teams to address all tasks on any given day. “Working in this field, you never know what you’re going to see or expect, so you have to be prepared for any situation,” Powell explained. And it’s no wonder—he’s worked extensively with trauma, domestic abuse, and bariatric patient calls. “With most of these calls, you cannot waste time as the patient’s life depends on the time it takes to assist, treat, and transport the patient,” he said.

It was also important to Powell that he not only care for his patients, but that he also work to combat racial injustice within his field as well. “During my time shadowing physician assistants while working as a student nurse, I experienced racial bias between patients and healthcare professionals several times,” he told us. “Being an openly black gay male, there were several times when patients would deny care because of the color of my skin and their beliefs.”

During Powell’s junior year at Pace, he decided to take a stand and focused much of his attention on writing a research paper regarding patient bias in the healthcare field. “I was able to complete this paper and give knowledge to my peers and faculty by gathering primary and secondary research,” he told us. Powell conducted many interviews and gathered medical journals and research that focused on patient and physician bias.

From there, he took that same passion for connecting with and uplifting others in order to tackle a new challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic. “As the pandemic placed a hold on my education, I saw this as an opportunity to seek out another way to help those within healthcare,” Powell told us. “I crammed ten weeks of basic EMT training into four weeks. [...] Being able to experience this part of pre-hospital care, I was capable of better learning how to advocate for patients in socioeconomically diverse areas.”

Truly, it’s remarkable how much Powell has accomplished in only a few years at Pace. His dedication, experience, skills, and passion have taken him far. But did you know he’s also a model? “Being in the talent industry already for my music, I already had friends and connections within this industry,” he explained, referring to the music he’s recorded as a signed artist. “After attending my first New York Fashion Week shows that were more focused on empowerment mixed in with fashion such as #MeToo and Chromat, I decided that this was something I wanted to do.”

He’s effected so much positive change since he first took the Pleasantville Campus by storm, but initially, Powell was drawn to selecting Pace for more than just its excellent health care programs. “The lip sync battle during Orientation was also a key factor into my choice of choosing Pace,” he told us. We’re certain that was quite the battle! We also look forward to all the good Powell continues to do in the bright future he has ahead of him.

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For many Pace students, learning doesn’t stop once one leaves the classroom for the day; or even, once one acquires their degree. Kevin McGovern ’83, ’21, who earned his bachelor’s in business administration and CPA designation thirty-eight years ago, epitomizes this ethos of persistence and the continual ability to evolve and grow with the times—which in fact, is one of the reasons he decided to return to Pace and pursue a master’s in cybersecurity.

“I’ve been working with technologists for twenty years now,” said Kevin. “I started with Merrill Lynch’s technology team, but I’ve always kind of done things from an accountant’s perspective or a businessman’s perspective, not from the technology perspective. Now, I want to know more about how the technology actually works, which is why I came back to school.”

Kevin is one of Pace’s many students that decide to embark on the pursuit of education a second time around. He has had a successful career working with various technology teams across the financial services arena including Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase; yet he believes there is still always more to learn.

“I want to be able to speak both sides,” said Kevin.

While the core principles of Pace—and the Setter blue and gold color palette—remain a familiar and grounding constant for Kevin, returning to his alma mater for his graduate degree has been a drastically different experience. As a student at Pace’s Westchester Campus back in the 1980’s, Kevin’s undergraduate years had a profound impact on his life. He earned his undergraduate degree, lived on campus as an RA, and even found a circle of people that would become lifelong friends for him and who have remained very close to him today.

“Do it. Don’t give it a second thought. Do it. You will get a great student experience out of it.”

“When we get together, it feels like we’ve been together forever. It is like we are all back in school again, but thirty-eight years later. We have been at each other’s weddings, our kids have grown up together, attended our kid’s birthday parties together, shared both weddings and funerals together. Other people look at it and say that it is ‘such an odd thing’. It is a very good oddity.”

Today, Kevin is earning his degree by attending classes online, and has learned certain benefits about the new structure of virtual education and how it plays into his busy day-to-day life.

“COVID changed the pace of everything we do, on a personal and business side, and that actually helped. Two years ago, it would have been much more difficult for me to balance both worlds.”

Kevin even discovered that the relationship that he has with his professors online is stronger than what he experienced as an undergraduate. While his experience may be drastically different than 1983—eight years before the world wide web was introduced to the public (on 8/6/91)! Kevin’s hunger for knowledge allows him to adapt and excel within the futuristic learning format.

One of the reasons he decided to pursue a graduate degree, he says, is due to the speed that the world is changing, and information is “pouring out.” Through enrolling in the master’s program, he has seized upon the opportunities available to him to be more capable in anticipating and adapting to said changes. For example, he is currently collaborating with his professor and his peers on a project concerning quantum computing; a technology which Kevin explains will revolutionize computing itself.

“Say you have a car that can go seventy miles per hour and take you from New York to Boston in three hours. Now I come up to you and say I have a car now that goes seven hundred miles per hour so that you can get there in 10 minutes, and it’s safer than the other car.’ That’s what quantum computing is.”

All in all, Kevin has found his return to school not only practical, but incredibly rewarding. When asked what he would say to someone considering pursuing an online degree, his answer is unwavering:

“Do it. Don’t give it a second thought. Do it. You will get a great student experience out of it.”

Joneisha “JoJo” Carmichael ’22, a commercial dance major and arts and entertainment management minor, has been hard at work completing a “daily doing challenge” put forth by dance legend Dana Wilson. The challenge is simple: do something every day related to your creative outlet. “My daily doing includes turning on a song and dancing to it. Sometimes the movement is choreographed and sometimes I improvise,” JoJo told us. Every video is posted to her Instagram story, where she’s been getting a lot of attention for her passion and perseverance—not to mention her immense talent. “Through this experience, I have gotten more comfortable in creating and sharing my art,” she said.

Initially, her goal was to complete two months of producing daily videos of her dance routines. JoJo is currently well past day 181—and counting. “Throughout this experience, I have slowly been overcoming this perfectionist trait that I inherently have,” she explained. “Social media is a platform where we all generally like to post our life highlights or all of the good things that we have going on, and [we] are reluctant to share our lows. However, since social media is where I display my daily videos, I have gained comfort in sharing my highs and lows with everyone.”

“I think what I enjoyed the most was being able to share the stage with such amazing artists. This was the first time that I had performed with actors and I was simply in awe of everyone’s talent.”

Her passion for dance all started way back when JoJo was just four years old. She was in gymnastics first, and a single moment during practice would change her life forever. “One day a little girl walked into the gym with some tap shoes. After seeing that, I told my parents I wanted to do whatever that little girl did,” JoJo told us. Her parents went on to enroll her in a local dance studio, and the rest is history. She’s been dancing ever since—so, naturally, when it came time to choose a college, it was important to pick one that fit what she was looking for in a dance program.

“Following high school graduation, I knew that I did not want to put myself in a box,” JoJo explained. “Pace commercial dance seemed like the perfect opportunity to learn and grow as a dancer, as well as have the freedom to explore different avenues within my training. I also found the LA experience that [they] offer extremely exciting, and something I knew I wanted to be a part of.”

She’s appeared in numerous productions at Pace since, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which she counts as one of her all-time favorite performance experiences. “[It] was a collaboration between the BFA in Acting program and the commercial dance program,” JoJo explained. “I think what I enjoyed the most was being able to share the stage with such amazing artists. This was the first time that I had performed with actors and I was simply in awe of everyone’s talent.”

Looking to the future, JoJo has some big plans. She not only wants a career in dance, but also to launch her very own talent agency someday. “I would want to represent multiple different talents within the entertainment industry—not just one artistic category,” she explained. “What I hope to bring to the arts industry is authenticity. By staying true to who I am as an artist and human, I hope that I inspire others to do the same. I also hope to bring variety to the arts industry.”

For now, JoJo is staying focused and working on her craft. She recently signed with MSA agency, too, and she says she’s “extremely excited about what this new chapter will bring.” We are, too! Keep an eye on where JoJo’s career goes—you’re sure to see her name in lights soon. In the meantime, give her a follow on Instagram.