Dal Yong Jin receives the title Distinguished SFU Professor

Professor Dal Yong Jin from SFU School of Communication has been named Distinguished Professor and Graduate Chair.  He is one of eight Distinguished Professors and this designation recognizes professor Jin for his outstanding performance and achievements and celebrates their international pre-eminence in his field. As a Distinguished Professor, Jin will share his work with the public through events such as lectures, panels and presentations. 

What does being a Distinguished Professor mean to you? 

Being a distinguished professor is not only an honor but a personal challenge to academically represent School of Communication, FCAT, and the university. On the one hand, it is a wonderful recognition of my scholarly work, which means that the professorship recognizes my work as some of the most significant and innovative. I am humbled. On the other hand, it is a huge undertaking because I have to continue to develop my academic accomplishments amongst other responsibilities. As one of the inaugural distinguished SFU professors, I am also responsible for making a series of public speeches and participate in several public events. Of course, I will be delighted to develop both my academic work and community engagements.    

What are your goals as Distinguished Professor? 

My priority goal is to demonstrate and sustain a record of exemplary academic accomplishments in my fields of globalization, Asian media studies, and political economy. The distinguished professorship is the starting point of a new journey, and I hope that I am able to advance my academic work to higher innovative and influential levels. This role gives me the opportunity to exercise my role as an academic leader by organizing several conferences, editing several books and journal special issues, and advancing new theoretical and methodological frameworks so that emerging scholars can develop them. Community engagement will be another pillar of my role over the next several years. Through giving public lectures, both nationally and internationally, and by participating in several community events, I will represent the School of Communication, FCAT and SFU.

What are your plans as Graduate Chair and what has motivated you to become Graduate Chair? 

Amongst all other works and responsibilities, the most significant task i will be focusing on is graduate admissions. Over the years, we have  welcomed numerous good students; however, we need to focus on increasing the number of applicants. I plan to develop a series of strategic plans for the upcoming admission cycles. I will also conduct a series of surveys for the development of education goals and fair assessments. Meanwhile, it is important for graduate students to work with faculty members in various tasks, including both research and teaching, and I will be able to advance communicative and viable working relationships between faculty and graduate students.