UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Matt Jordan, professor and head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, has received the 2025 Faculty Outreach Award.
The award honors faculty who have positively and substantially affected individuals, organizations or communities through problem solving or development as a result of extending their scholarship.
“Dr. Jordan’s work reflects his unwavering dedication to leveraging academic expertise for public good,” a nominator said. “He deeply understands and appreciates the need for scholars to extend their expertise directly to populations that can use it to better their lives. He is passionate about helping individuals become empowered to better use news and information, and his efforts demonstrate his commitment.”
Nominators said Jordan has spent his career being an advocate for outreach, linking the public to the arts. He created and ran the Collegetown Film Festival from 2014 to 2018. The nonprofit festival, which was attended by both members of the Penn State and community at large, brought internationally acclaimed film directors and their work to the region.
He’s also a fixture in the media, writing for news outlets including the Huffington Post and The Conversation. Nominators said his work at The Conversation garnered more than 1.7 million reads and has been translated into several languages.
Using a grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2019, Jordan launched the Humanities Institute’s documentary series “HumIn Focus.” He’s transitioned into an executive producer and creative consulting producer with HumIn Focus, producing nine documentaries for outlets such as WPSU. HumIn Focus received an Emmy nomination for single program documentary in 2020.
More recently, Jordan became the director of Penn State’s News Literacy Initiative (NLI), an ongoing outreach project that offers K-12 continuing education credit seminars, delivers lectures for courses and organizations at Penn State. He also produces the podcast and radio show “News over Noise,” a show dedicated to exploring the challenge of separating spin and click-bait from good journalism.
Through the News Literacy Initiative, Jordan runs a news literacy ambassador course and outreach project at Penn State. The News Literacy Initiative hosts events such as the national media literacy week celebration with help from the National Association for Media Literacy Education, the Poynter Institute and the News Literacy Project. Nominators said the project invites high school students to participate.
“As director of the NLI, he has also leaned into serving as a go-to source for reporters writing on misinformation and the need for credible journalism, and has been interviewed by journalists on radio, television and print from around Pennsylvania, the U.S. and the world,” a nominator said. “All of this public-facing work is captured and made available on the NLI website.”