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Welcome Back! The fall semester is already well underway, but we’re still trying to catch our breath from the busy summer! As many of you know, the Department of Communication moved to the second floor of Blazer Dining (formerly Blazer Hall). Our faculty offices are quite literally in the old dorm rooms of some of our alumni! Thankfully our stay is only temporary (3-4 years) while we work with university leadership to develop a master plan for the future home of the College of Communication and Information. Please let us know if you are interested in helping us make the dream of a new building a reality.
The most exciting news we have to share is that over the summer we hired SIX new faculty to fill positions left vacant by recent retirements and help us meet our ever-growing student demand. When I joined the Department in 2010 we had 369 majors and 91 minors. As of this morning, we have 588 majors and 233 minors – that’s over 800 students just in the Department of Communication! And, because of our commitment to offering UK Core requirements, we teach almost double that number of students every semester.
Our impressive new assistant professors include Diane Francis (Ph.D. University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill), a health communication scholar we recruited from Louisiana State who has hit the ground running by recently being named a DREAM Scholar by the Center for Health Equity Transformation; Nicky Lewis (Ph.D. Indiana University), a media scholar we recruited from the University of Miami who is helping us develop a new career track in sports communication; Rong Wang (Ph.D., University of Southern California), an organizational communication scholar who just completed a post-doc at Northwestern University’s Networks for Non-profit and Social Impacts; and Aurora Occa (Ph.D., University of Miami), a health communication scholar who, with Diane Francis, just participated in the Markey Cancer Center’s research retreat. Our new lecturers include Lainie Crouch Kaiser (J.D., American University), a communication alumna who returned to us from practicing law to direct our internship program, and Pam Henderson (MA, Michigan State) who is serving as the course coordinator for persuasive speaking and teaching organizational communication and writing requirement courses.
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Our faculty and students also received a few accolades over the summer worth mentioning. Kevin Real was awarded the Michael Brill Grant in Urban Communication and Design Behavior from the Environmental Design Research Association, Marko Dragojevic received the James J. Bradac Award for early career excellence in the field of language and social psychology from the International Association of Language and Social Psychology, Jeannette Sutton was named to the first cohort of UK-CARES Fellows in Science Communication, and doctoral candidate Sarah Sheff was accepted into the National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honors Seminar.
While we love to brag about our amazing faculty and students, we also want to hear from you. This year we will be featuring an alumni or friend of the Department in each newsletter. Please complete a profile update, and then send me an email [shari.veil@uky.edu] to provide an update on where you are now. The number one question we receive from incoming students and their parents is “What can you do with a degree in communication?” Help us show them the incredible opportunities out there for communication majors by sending me an email answering these three questions: 1) what do you do, 2) why do you do it, and 3) how does having a communication degree help you do it well. I can’t wait to see the variety of responses I know we will receive. Fair warning, we just started planning our student/alumni networking event so don’t be surprised if your email is responded to with an invitation to meet with our current students later this fall!
 Finally, we do have some sad news to share. Our dear friend Linda Mudge passed away this month. Linda retired in 2015 after serving for many years as our beloved staff associate. She was one of the kindest and most caring people in the world - always ready to give a helping hand and word of encouragement. She made everyone around her feel welcome, safe, and supported. She will be dearly missed.
Memorial gifts can be made to the Lexington Humane Society in memory of Linda Mudge.
Shari R. Veil, MBA, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Communication
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs, College of Communication and Information |
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