University Celebrates Installation of Bruce Strong as The Alexia Endowed Chair at the Newhouse School
Syracuse University celebrated the official installation of award-winning photographer and faculty member Bruce Strong as The Alexia Endowed Chair during a ceremony at the Newhouse School.
With Strong’s family, Newhouse colleagues, industry professionals and students in attendance, the event on Saturday, April 5 in the Newhouse 1 atrium included a medallion presentation for Strong led by Interim Provost Lois Agnew as well as remarks from Chancellor Kent Syverud.
The Alexia began in 1991 as the Alexia Foundation, created with the mission to promote cultural understanding and peace by supporting photographers as agents for change. Peter and Aphrodite Tsairis founded the foundation in partnership with the Newhouse School to honor their daughter, Alexia Tsairis. The 20-year-old photography major was killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, as she was returning home from a semester abroad in London.
The Tsairises sat in the front row during the ceremony, with relatives and family friends also gathered for the celebration, as well as David Sutherland, a professor emeritus and the program’s founding chair.
Since its inception, the program has provided nearly $2 million in funding in support of hundreds of students, professional photographers and filmmakers. In 2021, the program transitioned to the Newhouse School and became The Alexia.
The following year, The Alexia Chair position was endowed in large part through a $2 million gift from Xin Liu, co-founder and president of The Enlight Foundation and an Alexia grant recipient more than 30 years ago. The Enlight Foundation’s gift provides continuous support for grants and fellowships, as well as teaching, research, programmatic and educational opportunities that inspire more impactful storytelling.
The Alexia continues to receive support through generous donations from alumni, friends, professionals and corporate sponsorship.
“Honestly, I do not see this position simply as an honor; I see it as a responsibility,” Strong said. “As The Alexia Endowed Chair, I promise to work tirelessly to build a community that pierces darkness with light—to help others create images that convey understanding, promote meaningful conversation and inspire action.”
“In the end, the true power of documentary photography is not just in what we see. It’s in the voices it amplifies, the beauty it reveals, the perspectives it challenges and the change it ignites,” Strong said.
During the ceremony, Syverud also presented Strong with a gift befitting of the occasion: a signed first edition of “HALFWAY TO FREEDOM: A Report on the New India” by pioneering photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White.
At Newhouse, Strong teaches photography, video, audio and multimedia storytelling to undergraduate, graduate and military students. He has mentored College Photographer of the Year winners and earned a prestigious Meredith Teaching Recognition Award from Syracuse University. He also has been recognized for his teaching by the National Press Photographers Association.
Strong has traveled to nearly 80 countries during a decades-long career. He has worked at newspapers and freelanced for international publications and nonprofits. His images have been published in Time, National Geographic and other magazines.
Strong has also served as a Knight-Wallace Kellogg Public Policy Fellow at the University of Michigan, focusing on the intersection of journalism and the arts in developing community leadership, as well as the Knight Fellow at Ohio University.
Dean Mark J. Lodato also noted Strong’s encouraging demeanor and spirit of collaboration with faculty and staff at Newhouse.
“In my five years as dean at Newhouse, I consider my appointment of Bruce to lead The Alexia program as truly one of my best decisions,” Lodato said. “He truly honors the mission and values of The Alexia program.”