School of Media and Public Affairs 

J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs

Community involvement has been a major part of Professor Robert’s life as a GW professor. He writes a regular column for Bethesda Magazine that focuses on people making a difference in Montgomery County. One recent column told the story of Rosa Linares, an immigrant from El Salvador who grows crops from her native country on a lot next to her house and sells them to other Central American immigrants at a farmers’ market in Takoma Park. He serves on the board of the Montgomery County Historical Society, Montgomery Hospice, and Bread for the City, a vast social service organization centered in Washington D.C. He maintains a network of hundreds of his former students at GW, what his colleagues sometimes call his "Breakfast Club”. On many weekday mornings, he can be found at the same table at Founding Farmers, dining and talking with former students. These conversations infuse his teaching with the latest information and innovation in politics and media. In addition, they connect the latest crop of students with GW grads who provide them with jobs, internships and advice. These alumni are living out an admonition he tells every new class at GW: what happens here is not free. What you owe back for any help you get here is to help someone else. Almost all of them are eager to join that virtuous circle of community engagement.