Professional Interests

Research: issues management, crisis management

Teaching: media convergence, writing for the media, teaching grammar, organizational public relations

Academic Background

M.A.  West Texas A&M University,  Canyon, Texas USA,  communication (speech),  2001

B.A.  West Texas A&M University,  Canyon, Texas USA,  journalism (advertising/public relations),  1994

Memberships

Public Relations Society of America

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

Work Experience

Other Teaching Activities

Assurance of Learning - Teaching

2008 - What is the What by Dave Eggers was the Unviersity's 2008 Readership selection. In order to assure students' understanding and reading of the material, assignments included readings, interviews and a discussion related to the material. Students in MCOM 2311 were assigned to cover the Univeristy's Convocation and speech by Valentino Achak Deng, the suject of the book. Students then wrote journalistic stories about the speech. Prior to the speech, students watched a documentatary about Sudanese refugees to give them additional background before they covered the Convocation.

2007 - Using the University's Readership WT selection, Night, assigned reading and writing assignments just prior to the Convocation. Additionally, generated discussion with the material using Oprah's video interview with Ellie Wiesel before his campus visit. The assignments and the video clips, gave students the opportunity to discuss and critically think about the issues surrounding the Holocaust and Ellie Weisel's personal account. The unique opportunity to teach this material in a mass communication class combined with attending the news conference with Ellie Weisel were highlights of my first semester.

2007 - Throughout each course taught in 2007, conducted a series of classroom-learning assessments. Used Stop, Start, Continue to garner students' responses to what is not working in classroom instruction, what should be added to classroom instruction and what should be continued in classroom instruction. The assessment, conducted after the first one third of classroom meetings, is useful and focused. The responses are tabulated and changes made according to the students' learning assessments.