Chair (Academic Division ), Global Listening Centre.
Professor at Rhodes University

President (Academia), Global Listening Centre.
Prof. : Fordham University, New York City.

Lance Strate received his PhD in Media Ecology from New York University in 1991 and is presently Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City. He is also President of the Institute of General Semantics, and founder, past president, and board member of the Media Ecology Association. Dr. Strate is the author of 11 books, including Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman’s Brave New World Revisited; Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition; Concerning Communication: Epic Quests and Lyrical Excursions in the Human Lifeworld; First Letter of My Alphabet (his third poetry collection); and most recently, Not A, Not Be, & C. He has also co-edited 7 anthologies, and served as editor of the Speech Communication Annual, General Semantics Bulletin, and Explorations in Media Ecology. He is the recipient of the 2025 Sanford Berman Award for Teaching and the 2022 J. Talbot Winchell Award for Service from the Institute of General Semantics; the 2018 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book and the 2013 Walter J. Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship from the Media Ecology Association; the 2019 Distinguished Research Fellow Award from the Eastern Communication Association; the 2019 Neil Postman Mentor Award and the1998 John F. Wilson Fellow Award for exceptional scholarship, leadership, and dedication to the field of communication from the New York State Communication Association; and the 2024 Leadership in Listening Award and 2020 Outstanding Research Award from the Global Listening Centre.

Listening is the way in which we let others into our personal consciousness, taking in a part of them and making them a part of us. There are many ways in which we take what is exterior to ourselves and make it a part of our interiority, but none as intimate or as influential as listening. Listening is the signal and substance of I-You relationships, through which we form unities and communities that are far great than the sum of their parts, the otherwise isolated individuals that they are made from. Through listening, we are able to grow and evolve as human beings, as human societies, and as the human species.

Alexander V. Laskin, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at Quinnipiac University, CT, USA. He is an author of about 100 publications, focused primarily on investor relations, reputation management, and the future of global strategic communications.

He recently published: Public Relations and Strategic Communication in 2050: Trends Shaping the Future of the Profession (2025); Organizational Reputation Management: A Strategic Public Relations Perspective (2024); Investor Relations and Financial Communication (2022); and Social, Mobile, and Emerging Media Around the World (2018).

During his academic career, Laskin served as a Chair of the Financial Communications section of the Public Relations Society of America, a Fulbright Specialist, Page Legacy Scholar, Plank Fellow, People’s United Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellow, and Albert Schweitzer Fellow. His research was recognized with awards from the Association for Business Communication, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the Institute for Public Relations; he is also the recipient of the Quinnipiac University’s Faculty Scholarship Award.

Before the academe, Laskin worked in investor relations, public relations, marketing, and measurement & evaluation. Laskin received his PhD from the University of Florida, USA. He also has graduate degrees in International Business; Public Relations; and undergraduate degrees in English and Economic, Social, and Political Geography. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Laskin offers consulting services in investor relations, reputation management, international communications, and measurement & evaluation.