UH Manoa's Lowell Frazier Receives President's Commendation

University of Hawaiʻi

Lowell Frazier, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa journalism professor since 1984, was recently awarded the President‘s Commendation, a new award presented by the University of Hawaiʻi president that honors conspicuous service to the university community.

Frazier was presented with the award for his work as the director of the Parvin/Freedom Forum Journalism Studies Fellowship Program. More than 200 Chinese journalists have come to the University of Hawaiʻi as part of the program, and since 1992, Frazier has been instrumental in renewing grant support for each year‘s cohort of participants. He has also served as a caring mentor to the men and women who have taken part by hosting them with his family for Thanksgiving and other holidays and also leading them on study tours to the mainland where they have seen how newsrooms and publishing plants work in Washington, New York, and elsewhere. Today, alumni of the program fill important posts in many of China‘s most important news agencies and newspapers.

In 1999, he was named a Fulbright scholar and spent a sabbatical semester teaching at Beijing‘s China School of Journalism. He lectured throughout the country and solidified the partnerships between the program and China‘s journalism leaders.

Frazier joined the UH Mānoa faculty in 1984 after 20 years in the U.S. Navy as a public relations officer. He ended his career in the Navy directing the Defense Information School‘s Department of Journalism and went on to head the Advertising and PR sequence at Middle Tennessee State University‘s Department of Mass Communication. During all of this, he was also able to earn two master‘s degrees from American University as well as a doctorate from Tennessee State at Nashville.

Frazier retired at the end of this spring semester at UH Mānoa and will begin his post-retirement career on the faculty of Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. When announcing his retirement, he said the Parvin program "has been perhaps the most worthwhile contribution I have made. It has been the highlight of my university experience."