User:KmbrowneUSC/Geoffrey Cowan

Geoffrey Cowan has been an important force across a spectrum of communication and public policy arenas – as a lawyer, academic administrator, government official, best-selling author, distinguished professor, playwright, and Emmy Award-winning producer.

In 2010, the trustees of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands appointed him to serve as the first president of the Trust. In this capacity, Cowan will turn the 200-acre estate of Ambassador Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore into "a venue for important retreats for top government officials and leaders in the fields of law, education, philanthropy, the arts, culture, science and medicine." The estate is located in Rancho Mirage, CA.

USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
From 1996-2007, he served as dean of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. At USC Annenberg, he launched new academic programs in public diplomacy, specialized journalism, strategic public relations, global communication and online communities. He was a successful fundraiser and established the first endowed faculty chairs at the school. He launched and remains involved with major USC Annenberg centers and projects, including the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Norman Lear Center, Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities, Knight Digital Media Center and the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future.

When he stepped down as dean in 2007, he was named a University Professor (one of 21 at the university), the inaugural holder of the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and director of USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. He holds a joint appointment in the USC Gould School of Law and teaches courses in communication and journalism.

Background
Geoffrey Cowan was born on May 8, 1942, to Louis Cowan, former president of the CBS television network and professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, and Polly Spiegel Cowan, a TV and radio producer and a civil rights activist. Cowan graduated from Harvard College in 1964. That summer, he and his older brother Paul went to rural Mississippi to register black voters and start a farmers co-op during the Freedom Summer. Their letters home were included in the book Letters from Mississippi. The following summer, Cowan returned to Mississippi to co-found the Southern Courier, the first civil rights newspaper in the region.

Cowan graduated from Yale Law School in 1968. Inspired by the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Cowan launched into a project to determine how the delegates were chosen. He discovered that nearly half of the delegates needed to nominate a presidential candidate were chosen by party bosses. This led to dramatic reform in the selection of delegates." Cowan went on to practice law in Washington, D.C., where he co-founded the Center for Law and Social Policy.

In 1972, Cowan moved to Los Angeles and became the director of UCLA's Communications Law program. In 1975, he was a legal consultant to Norman Lear and the Writer's Guild of America in their challenge to CBS' Family Viewing Hour, which affected Lear's program All in the Family.

Professor
In addition to his tenure at USC, Cowan spent twenty years as a professor of communication law and policy at UCLA, where he received numerous teaching awards and founded the Center for Communication Policy.

Television Producer
Concurrently with his teaching at UCLA, Cowan was a television producer. In 1991, he won an Emmy as executive producer of the television movie Mark Twain & Me, which was voted Outstanding Prime Time Program for Children by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He also produced The Quiz Kids and a public affairs show called Why in the World?

Government Official
Prior to becoming dean, President Clinton appointed Cowan to serve the nation as the director of the Voice of America. He was the 22nd director of the VOA, the international broadcasting service of the United States Information Agency. He also served as associate director of the USIA and as director of the International Broadcasting Bureau, with responsibility for WORLDNET TV and Radio & TV Marti as well as VOA.

From 1979-84, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and played a key role in the development of National Public Radio.

Author
An award-winning author, Cowan’s books include: See No Evil: The Backstage Battle Over Sex and Violence on Television (Simon & Schuster, 1980), and the best-selling The People v. Clarence Darrow: The Bribery Trial of America's Greatest Lawyer (Random House, 1993). He is currently working on a book about Theodore Roosevelt and the 1912 Presidential campaign.

Playwright
With the late Leroy Aarons, Cowan co-wrote the award-winning play, Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers, which explores the delicate balance between the press, public's right to know and the government's need to protect some vital national secrets. Called “engaging,” “splendidly nuanced” and a “crackling drama” by reviewers, Top Secret was presented Off-Broadway by New York Theatre Workshop in the 2010 season and was produced in 25 venues across the country during a national tour in the 2007-2008 season.

Miscellaneous
When the City of Los Angeles sought to create an ethics code in 1989, Mayor Tom Bradley tapped Cowan to chair the Los Angeles commission that drafted a law that become a model for the nation – and for which he was awarded "Man of the Year" by the Council of Government Ethics Leaders. He chaired the California Bipartisan Commission on Internet Political Practices and served as on the White House Fellows regional selection committee during the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Cowan serves on the boards of California HealthCare Foundation, Common Sense Media, Human Rights Watch and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Education
Cowan is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

Personal Life
Cowan is married to Aileen Adams, deputy mayor of Los Angeles and former Secretary of State and Consumer Affairs for the State of California. They have two children, Gabriel Cowan, a filmmaker, and Mandy Wolf, a grade school teacher.