Category Archives: Faculty News

#UDcomm318 – Students Take Social Media By Storm

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By: Julie Solomon, a junior Interpersonal Communication major

As a class member of #UDcomm318, I have gotten to experience University of Delaware’s very first Social Media Management course. Two of the university’s finest social media experts, Carolyn White Bartoo and Meredith Chapman, lead the class. According to Professor Bartoo, this course was created by a “random impulsive moment that was actually a culmination of many years of thinking.”

When Professor Bartoo and Professor Chapman met, they found there was a natural relationship created due to their similar expertise. Professor Bartoo describes this as a magical coincidence or kismet. This excitement between the two sparked interest in creating #UDcomm318, and through several correspondences, they pitched the idea of a Social Media-focused class. The dynamic duo alternate for the weekly class, in which one is the “captain” for the night and the other plays the support role.

Many aspects of #UDcomm318 have been a success, including hosting a Google Hangout with international students about the use of social media. While we are busy talking about Insomnia or the latest fashion statement, their reality is war versus peace. Professor Bartoo noticed a “peace on earth moment,” seeing her students’ light bulbs go off in their minds and eyes while becoming personally enlightened about other cultures. In addition, students love creating digital stories in #UDcomm318. From a professor’s point of view, Professor Bartoo was having a blast running up and down the halls and seeing that “a silly activity was actually the culmination of 9 hours of the class so far.”

As a student within this course, Allison Lane, a junior communications major, spoke further about the digital story activity. During the digital story, we broke up into groups and created either a Vine or Instagram video. Before this class, many students had no idea how these types of digital media could actually be used to send effective messages, but the activity truly put what we had learned into action. Allison Lane states, “My favorite aspect is how interactive it [#UDcomm318] is that we are in class for three hours, but it doesn’t feel like that because we have a lot of hands-on activities.” This class always has us as students on our feet and engaging in conversation on several different social media platforms.

#UDcomm318 provides a learning environment to master new skills. One new skill that we have gained is “live-tweeting as well as deep dive-tweeting,” says Lane. This means live-tweeting an event, such as the several National Agenda speakers, while pulling outside sources into the conversation in order to create higher-level thinking and to increase engagement. We have also learned to use tools like TweetDeck and Hootsuite, which will be beneficial if (and when) we work with social media platforms in our careers.

Social Media Management is an extremely stimulating and advantageous course for any student at the University of Delaware to enroll in in future semesters. Allison Lane articulates it best when she says, “All companies need social media. It’s important to know how to effectively use today’s technology and engage with others on multiple platforms.” No matter the major or career aspirations, these skills are exceedingly critical to succeed in the so-called “real world” that students will be entering shortly.

Tell Your Story: Dr. Danna Young Speaks at Drexel University

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Dr. Danna Young, an Assistant Profesor at the Department of Communication, visited and spoke at Drexel University on Tuesday, May 6. Her talk, entitled “Satire, Citizenship, and the Strong Case of Irony,” was a part of the Drexel “Great Works Symposium.”

In her talk, Dr. Young specifically discussed satire and parody, focusing on Colbert’s SuperPAC and his coverage on the Citizen’s United decision. Dr. Young also referenced the recent drama of the Twitter “#CancelColbert” trend and how irony is a dangerous rhetorical device.

danna young drexel u

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‘Like’ The Department of Communication on Facebook

Celebrating 40 years as a Department.                                                                        Join the conversation with the hash-tag: #UDCOMM40

Fall literacy community project launched by public speaking students

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This fall the students enrolled in Communication 212 Public Speaking will again create, launch and lead a support campaign for a local Delaware non-profit organization. This year, Dr. Tracey Holden’s students will work with Success Won’t Wait, which advocates for increased literacy among Delaware’s under-served children.

These energetic public speaking students will expand outreach and increase donations of the programs base location in Wilmington, Delaware. The overall purpose of the project is to connect students in the community.

Dr. Tracy Holden aims to connect students to the community through communication, “Comm 212 includes students from all majors, from freshmen to seniors.  No matter what background a student has, this project develops essential skills and civic experience.  It also offers the partnering agency the creativity and  energy of our dynamic students  – it’s a win-win!”

 

For more information on the project, contact: Dr. Tracey Holden tqhold@UDel.edu

Faculty Update- Huffington Post & Why People do NOT go Online

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Professor Lindsay Hoffman write articles for the Huffington Post as mentioned by the latest faculty update. Check out her latest blog post The Case for Being Old-Fashioned. 

Professor Hoffman’s ongoing “Blog Blog Project” posts articles from current students in her classes at the University of Delaware.  Students write blog posts then vote as a class to pick the best of the bunch. This round of students chose senior Eric Hastings submission. Eric’s post looks at the correlation of  the 15 percent of Americans who don’t go online and what advantages they might gain from this. Congratulations Eric!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lindsay-hoffman/the-case-for-being-old-fashioned_b_4069723.html

Potential Future Emmy Nominees

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COMM Majors: We already have one Emmy nomination,  check out the latest videos that are bound to be nominated for another!

Professor Lydia Timmins and her crew haveAGAIN produced two different yet equally insightful documentaries:

The documentary Not Your Average Student  portrays three of today’s unique college students: a man in his late 60’s, a young women with a small child, and an international student. The documentary pushes past the stereotypes typically used for college students (think Animal House). This perspective is essential to UD, especially since the higher education world, like much of education, is going through many changes throughout America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLnSE-q2dJ8

Unt*ix*tled re-introduces the public to the often forgotten Title IX. Don’t know what Title IX is? This landmark decree broke ground in the issues faced today with gender equality in athletics. This documentary looks at the decree in its origin’s and how its presence continues to grow and change even today. Check out the documentary and decide for yourself if Title IX is good or bad, or neither.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ut-V8wK94

UD “MA” COMM Program Exceeds Expectations: Research Powerhouse

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– Johanna Lukk, COMM ’14 and Carolyn White Bartoo, COMM ’88

Our Department of Communication is making some big waves in the competitive waters of academic research.  We’re recognized as a national leader in scholarly research output. The Communication Institute for Online Scholarship (CIOS), a non-profit supporting computer technologies used in communication scholarship and education, recognized UD’s COMM Department has given us a ‘tip of the hat’ for outperforming much larger programs at other universities.

Our COMM Department offers both undergraduate and masters level programs for students – but that’s not news. What IS news is that CIOS recently noticed that our hard working professors crank out such uniquely high levels of results that we exceed the productivity levels of not just our peer MA-only communication departments; but we also meet, and in many cases, BEAT larger, longer, and typically more well-funded graduate communication programs at other universities which grant doctorates.

Although much of this is an “inside baseball” academic distinction, it’s really significant because normally MA-only programs have lower scholarly output rates than larger, Ph.D.-granting institutions. But not UD COMM . . . we ranked in the same ballpark as the top 25 Ph.D. grant programs in the entire country. Way to go UD COMM scholars! David and Goliath stories do actually happen!