(ANS - Rome)- On 24 September, the Rector Major of the Salesians and Grand Chancellor of the UPS, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, appointed the new Dean of the Faculty of Social Communication: He is Fr Peter Andrew Gonsalves, Extraordinary Professor of communication and education. He is the first Dean of the FSC from a non-European country, a further sign of the openness that characterizes the increasingly international faculty.

Fr Gonsalves was born in Mumbai, India, on 3 January 1958. He has been a Salesian since December 1977. He was ordained priest on 19 December 1987. He holds the titles of Master of Philosophy and Bachelor of Arts from the Indian University of Pune and the Bachelor of Theology from Kristu Jyoti College in Bangalore. He received his PhD in Social Communication at the Salesian Pontifical University in 2007. In previous years he had also obtained a Diploma in Counselling (Xavier's Institute, Mumbai 1988) and a Diploma in Media Education (British Film Institute - Open University, London 2003).

He started teaching in 1981 in India, where he founded the Don Bosco Creativity Workshops in Mumbai and where he was National Coordinator for Social Communications from 1993 to 1999. He was President of Intersig (SIGNIS - International Group) from 2005 to 2009. He was in Italy from 2002 to 2006 as coordinator of the web portal of the Salesians of Don Bosco at the Generalate.  He began teaching at the UPS in 2008, was co-opted as a lecturer that same year and promoted to extraordinary professor on 24 May 2013.

His major academic publications include: Clothing for Liberation (SAGE, New Delhi - California - London - Singapore 2010); Khadi: Gandhi's Mega Symbol of Subversion (SAGE, New Delhi - California - London - Singapore 2012);Gandhi and the Popes, from Pius IX to Francis (Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2014).

He assumes office as Dean on Thursday 1 October 2015.

Published 28/09/2015