The Robert Wood Johnson 1962 Charitable Trust has made a $300,000 gift to the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication, housed within the College of Communications at Penn State, to support the study and advancement of ethics in communications and corporate responsibility.
The Page Center was created in 2004 through a leadership gift of Lawrence G. Foster, a distinguished Penn State alumnus and retired corporate vice president for public relations at Johnson & Johnson. Foster's management of Johnson & Johnson's response to the Tylenol poisoning in 1982 -- widely acclaimed as a model of corporate responsibility -- along with numerous other contributions to the public relations profession earned him many honors, including the Gold Anvil from the Public Relations Society of America for lifetime achievement.
The center is the namesake for Arthur W. Page, the longtime vice president for public relations at AT&T who often is regarded as the founder of the modern practice of corporate public relations. He also was widely known for management according to the Page Principles, his guidelines for ethical and effective communication with the public and for responsible corporate behavior. The Page Center seeks to foster a modern understanding and application of the Page Principles by supporting innovative research, educational or public service projects in a wide variety of academic disciplines and professional fields.
The Robert Wood Johnson 1962 Charitable Trust is a philanthropy established by Robert Wood Johnson, who built Johnson & Johnson from a small family business into the world's largest health- and medical-care product company and one renown for its high standards of social responsibility.
Robert Wood Johnson, known as the "General" because of his service in World War II as a brigadier general, wrote the Johnson & Johnson Credo, his principles of corporate responsibility that guided the company's ethical response to the Tylenol tragedy and is considered an exemplar for American business.
"We believe that young people entering the field of communications can be inspired by examples of ethical responsibility such as the credo written by Gen. Johnson," said Foster, who knew Johnson and is the author of his biography, "Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel." "I believe the general would be very pleased with our goals and our program."
Foster, whose own $300,000 gift launched the center, describes it as "a lighthouse for those students and practitioners interested in demonstrating and articulating the highest standards of communication and ethical behavior in business as well as other institutions."
The cornerstone of the center's activities in its inaugural year was to award $60,000 in grants to support professionals and scholars making important contributions to knowledge, practice or public understanding of ethics and responsibility in public communication. Winners of the nationwide competition were designated Page Legacy Scholars, and the results of their projects will be published by the center.
"By financially supporting such academic and professional projects, the center will be able to set the agenda for greater integrity in public communications," said John S. Nichols, director of the center and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the College of Communications.
The Page Center also will be the archive for Page's previously uncollected papers and memorabilia and related research materials in the area of ethics in public communication and corporate responsibility. According to Nichols, the center also is collecting oral histories of senior corporate communication executives and others who personify the Page Principles and will make those and an array of other research materials widely available in a variety of electronic formats. Further, the Page Center has launched a project for the development of curriculum and pedagogical approaches to foster ethics in public relations.
Members of the Page Center Advisory Board, in addition to Foster, are Edward M. Block, retired senior vice president of public relations at AT&T; John A. Koten, retired senior vice president of corporate communications at Ameritech; Douglas A. Anderson, dean of the Penn State College of Communications; and Thomas P. Martin, president of the Arthur W. Page Society and senior vice president and director of corporate relations at ITT Industries. Foster, Koten and Block all are members of the Hall of Fame of the Page Society, the nation's leading professional organization for senior public relations executives. The Page Center and Page Society function as separate entities.
Among the themes for the next Page Legacy Scholar competition will be how credos and codes of ethics affect corporate behavior. For more information on the center and the Page Legacy Scholar Grants, check the Web at http://pagecenter.comm.psu.edu/ or call (814) 863-6307.