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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Gary Hicks, PhD, professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ (CAS) Department of Mass Communication, will present The William and Margaret Going Endowed Professorship Award Lecture at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 19 in the Maple-Dogwood Room in the Morris University Center on the Edwardsville campus.   

The 2022 Going Award recipient, CAS’ most distinguished faculty award, will present an overview of his more than 25 years of research into how mass media have served to stigmatize and marginalize the LGBTQ+ community. 

Hicks will discuss his findings from his studies of media texts, public opinion polls and politics going back nearly 100 years and will describe how these forces oftentimes converged to make the world either a harder or easier place to live for its millions of LGBTQ+ identified inhabitants.  

“I am beyond honored and very humbled to have received this award,” said Hicks, a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “Former awardees are nationally and internationally known scholars in their fields. I am thrilled to have joined their company. Having worked for more than 25 years on a research agenda makes me proud of my contributions to the scholarship of media and its representations and effects on members of the LGBTQ+ community.” 

Given a historical lack of acceptance in the academy, only a small number of scholars devote attention to Hicks’ kind of research. This has since launched his scholarship into preeminence internationally. 

“While that kind of notoriety is rewarding, there is something very special about your own colleagues and your own institution recognizing your work,” said Hicks. “I will always be grateful to SIUE for supporting me in developing what I consider a very important area of research.” 

During his upcoming sabbatical, Hicks plans to study media coverage of the recent monkeypox outbreak and that of the early 1980s AIDS pandemic. Hicks observes that the AIDS coverage was very stigmatizing and further marginalized the gay community. 

“I want to see what progress has been made in reporting on a contemporary health crisis that also has affected mostly those in the gay male community, at least in Europe and the United States,” he said. “From there, I have a book idea that I want to pursue on the current political backlash against the hard-won progress that the LGBTQ+ community has made over the past decades. I am interested in writing a second book on what is called the death of gay culture in this era of mainstreaming LGBTQ+ images in the media, and the use of technology, specifically dating apps.”

A teacher-scholar in his approach to education, Hicks has taught courses where he has been able to introduce his research to his students. These include Cultural Studies in the Media and an Honors seminar on Social Justice and the LGBTQ+ Community. 

Hicks earned his bachelor’s in broadcast journalism and political science from Texas Christian University, a master’s in longform journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a PhD in journalism studies from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Established by the late Dr. William Going in honor of his wife Margaret, the Going Award is presented to a faculty member who has produced outstanding scholarship and connected that scholarship in fundamental ways to their teaching that has transformed students’ lives.  

Free tickets to the lecture can be requested here. 

Photo: Gary Hicks, PhD, professor in the CAS Department of Mass Communication