Founder and Executive Director

Dr. Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver is executive director of the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication and dean emeritus and professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Named the Outstanding Woman in Journalism and Mass Communication Education for 2009 by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, she was recognized as a woman who has represented fellow women in the academy through excellence and high standards in journalism education.  A nationally known expert and researcher on the First Amendment, the scholastic and collegiate press, and the role and status of women in communication, she is the author of more than 125 scholarly articles, monographs and books.

Kopenhaver is past president of AEJMC, College Media Advisers, the Student Press Law Center, and the Community College Journalism Association. She holds the Wells Memorial Key from the Society of Professional Journalists, its highest honor, and was only the second woman in the history of the organization to win that award at that time, the CMA Distinguished Service Award, the AEJMC Newspaper Division Distinguished Service Award, the AEJMC Outstanding Leadership Award, the FIU Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Torch Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Rowan University. She was inducted into the National Hall of Fame of both College Media Advisers and the Community College Journalism Association.

Kopenhaver was honored in 2011 with the FIU Distinguished University Service Medallion as an “exemplary role model” of the industry and the community and for demonstrating “a vision, initiative and drive that have been instrumental for almost four decades in the development of the university and the school.” In 2020 she was awarded the Lifetime Service Award from Rowan University and in 2022 was designated a Pioneer by the Associated Collegiate Press as its highest honor to journalism educators. In 2023 she was honored by the City of Miramar, Florida, in recognition of her commitment and dedication to the empowerment of women through education and professional development.

Kopenhaver joined FIU in 1973 and rose through the ranks to become dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2003, a post she held for nearly nine years. Over the course of her tenure, Kopenhaver was instrumental in creating programs and opportunities for students, particularly women. In what has historically been an industry largely dominated by men, Kopenhaver was frequently one of the few women to hold leadership positions and be part of the decision-making process within the communications fields. That was the impetus for her founding the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida International University in 2013