JEAN GROW
SCHOLAR
Jean Grow is an Associate Professor in the department of Strategic Communication in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Milwaukee School of Art and Design, which offers three fine arts minors. The curricular redesign and pedagogical collaboration, which she has spearheaded, has led to a quadrupling in enrollment.
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Jean’s current research focuses on women in advertising. Her published work includes articles on early Nike women’s advertising and the lack of women in advertising creative departments across the world. She has interviewed women in Europe, North and South America and is currently working on data from women in China and Thailand. A recent publication used the industry’s own data to demonstrate the dire lack of women’s in advertising creative departments across 50 countries. As a scholar she is passionate about giving voice to women and advocating for change.
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Her work has been included in The International Journal of Advertising, Advertising & Society Review, Communication & Society,and Journal of Consumer Marketing. Jean is currently working on the fourth edition of Advertising Creative: Strategy, Copy & Design (Sage) her co-authored book, which has sold across the world with the second edition translated in Chinese.
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Jean is passionate about teaching and holds a special place in her heart for first generation students, as they reflect her own journey. Dr. Grow teaches a wide variety of courses, always with an eye toward social criticism. Her Ethical Action teaching blog is the heart of her Media Ethics class. She created a “Gender in Advertising from the Inside-Out” class, which helps students contextualize the gender dynamics within advertising creative departments.
In 2010, Grow developed Global Brand Tracking, a three-week cultural immersion course, which ethnographically track brands in London and Prague, and has taught it bi-annually since its inception.
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In spring of 2013, Dr. Grow was a Visiting Professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, and has lectured in Barcelona and Rome.
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Dr. Grow has won numerous grants and awards including two grants from the Spanish government in collaboration with colleagues from Barcelona. In 2013, she was awarded the Golden Rose Award in recognition of her passion for and service to first generation multicultural students. In 2007 Jean received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
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She is a member of the American Academy of Advertising and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
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Prior to joining the academy Jean worked as an artists’ representative with advertising agencies such as Leo Burnett, DDB, FCB and J. Walter Thompson; and clients such as Coca Cola, Kellogg USA and Zenith. She continues her industry affiliation, providing strategic consulting. Recent clients include: Nike (women’s advertising retrospective), National Hemophilia Foundation (women’s brand development), and Flamingo International-London (semiotic brand category analysis for US brand launch).
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