DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Dr. Mitchell Land, interim dean of the University of North Texas Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism, will travel to the Republic of Liberia on Africa's west coast Sept. 26 to provide training to journalists who will cover the nation's general election in 2011. He will stay in the nation until Oct. 8.

Land, who previously led the school's Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism in launching a journalism program at a university in Mozambique, was recruited by the U.S. Department of State to provide training to the Liberian journalists. Liberians will elect the nation's president and fill all of the seats in the House of Representatives and half of the seats in the Senate during the general election, which is scheduled to be held Oct. 11, 2011. Incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has confirmed that she is running for a second term in office. George Weah, a humanitarian and former star on the Liberian national soccer team, has confirmed that he will run for president again after losing to Sirleaf in the 2005 presidential runoff election.

Land will teach advanced reporting techniques, feature writing and media ethics to the Liberian journalists. He said he will integrate the teaching into the graduate-level media ethics course that he is teaching at UNT this semester.

In addition, Land will be the keynote speaker Sept. 30 at the 46th anniversary celebration of the Press Union of Liberia. The title of his speech is "Media Integrity for Peaceful Elections."

A UNT faculty member since 1994, Land became the first director of the Mayborn Graduate Institute when it was created in 1999. The institute became an enhancement of the existing master's degree program in journalism. In 2005, Land launched the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, which brings talented nonfiction storytellers to the Dallas-Fort Worth area every summer to discuss the aesthetic elements of nonfiction narrative prose writing that elevate readers' enjoyment without compromising facts.

During the 2009 fall semester, Land led UNT's Department of Journalism to become the Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism, and has been the school's interim dean since it was created.

He is the co-author of "Contemporary Media Ethics," which analyzes how print and electronic media professionals confront ethical dilemmas by focusing on high-profile case studies. His heuristic model discussed in the book, the Point-of-Decision Pyramid, was a major contribution to the study of media ethics. 

A UNT alumnus, Land received his master's degree in journalism from the university in 1982. He also has a bachelor's degree in French from Midwestern State University, master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and doctoral degree in radio/television/film with an emphasis on international communication and cultural anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin.