Iowa State students will have an opportunity to learn about women, leadership and media Thursday from Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, the first African American to receive a doctorate in advertising.

Kern-Foxworth teaches at Texas A&M in the Department of Journalism and is an accredited public relations professional.

She wrote the first book about African Americans in advertising, titled “Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.” She also co-edited “Facing Difference: Race, Gender and the Mass Media.”

Kern-Foxworth’s commentary has appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and other national publications, according to a press release.

The lecture, which will be Thursday at 8 p.m. in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union, will be about leadership in the media.

Kern-Foxworth will give her perspectives on the group she belongs to, International Woman’s Forum, said John Eighmey, chairman of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Kern-Foxworth is one of 12 women in International Woman’s Forum and the only African American member. “It’s highly competitive,” she said.

The forum attends conferences in San Francisco, and in the future it plans to attend conferences in London. It also focuses on how to manage failure, conflict resolution and media training, Kern-Foxworth said.

Kern-Foxworth is an “extraordinary, accomplished speaker,” Eighmey said. “She is a very powerful speaker, and she is very active in working with diversity.”

Eighmey said Kern-Foxworth considers herself “a member of the diversity police.”

The lecture will touch on issues that people will not be able to discuss and learn about anywhere else, Kern-Foxworth said. “I will talk about what it takes to propel women through the glass ceiling,” she said.

In addition to serving on the forum, Kern-Foxworth was recently elected president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication for the year 2000, Eighmey said.

The lecture is sponsored by Public Relations Student Society of America, Journalism and Mass Communications and Committee on Lectures.