Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania

There are multiple Annenberg Schools. For the communications school at USC, see USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. See also Annenberg (disambiguation). The Annenberg School for Communication is the communication school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School alum Walter Annenberg as the Annenberg School of Communications. The name was changed to its current title in 1990. History Walter Annenberg founded the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958. The school, whose first class began in 1959, was initially a master's-only program. The first Annenberg students were admitted in the Fall semester of 1959 and graduated in the Spring semester of 1960. Gilbert Seldes was the first dean at the school, serving from 1959 until 1963. George Gerbner, an advisor to communications commissions and a major contributor to cultivation theory, became dean in 1964. He founded the Cultural Indicators Project in 1967, measuring trends in television content and how it shaped perceptions of society. The Annenberg School launched its doctoral program in 1968. The school retained ownership of the Journal of Communication from 1974 to 1991, which was published by Penn while Gerbner was editor. Dean George Gerbner held the post until 1989.