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College of Information and Communications

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    J-school faculty at the 2025 college retreat.

J-school Accolades

Faculty and Staff

We want to recognize the hard work and accomplishments of our faculty and staff during the academic year. Watch as the listings on this page increase.

AEJMC Top Paper Awards

aejmc award winners holding certificates

Photo (l to r): Top faculty paper award recipients: Joon Kim, Ali Zain and Jungmi Jun. Top graduate student paper recipients: Dante Mozie, Yu Chen and Carrie Jingyi Xiao.


Staff Spotlight Award

Sabrina McClure

Sabrina McClure was the recipient of the September CIC Staff Spotlight Award honoree!

As an academic advisor, she goes above and beyond to support students with care, encouragement and guidance.

Her positivity and teamwork inspire those around her, making her an invaluable part of our team.

 


Previous Year Accolades

Brett Robertson

 

Brett Robertson awarded the Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award

Assistant professor Brett Robertson in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications has been honored with the award, which recognizes faculty who demonstrate exceptional commitment to undergraduate education, innovative teaching methods and a profound impact on student learning.

 


 

Garnet Media Group names Kelly Davis top CIC professor

Kelly Davis

Kelly Davis was named Best Professor in the College of Information and Communications in Garnet Media Group’s Best of Carolina showcase.

Students in The Carolina Agency said she "... consistently leads and inspires our agency’s strategic communications professionals, both past and future, serving as both a dedicated mentor and a role model."

 

 


Mary Anne Fitzpatrick

Mary Anne Fitzpatrick was awarded the National Communication Association's prestigious Charles H. Woolbert Research Award for her 2002 article, “Toward a Theory of Family Communication,” published in Communication Theory.

The article emerged as the top candidate owing to the endurance of family communication pattern theory, the generative impact of the theory on the field of family communication, and the far-reaching impact of the theory across several subfields of the discipline.

 


The Carolina Agency

TCA won the CIC Access and Engagement Award which  recognizes faculty, staff and student organizations whose contributions best exemplify the college’s access, engagement, and inclusive excellence commitments and objectives. 


Damion Waymer received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Leadership

Waymer was recognized for a number of achievements, including: successful reaccreditation and centennial his first year here; addressing curricular challenges; took the lead on shepherding new communication BA through approvals; asking good questions and challenges assumptions; and embracing change.

 


faculty holding award
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication awarded the SJMC an honorable mention for the 2024 Equity and Diversity Award. The school was honored for efforts over the past three years that demonstrated a firm commitment to and progress toward becoming a leader in equity, diversity and inclusive excellence in teaching, research, service, and focusing on improving faculty, staff, and student composition.

 

Publication Awards

Damion Waymer

Damion Waymer's article, Arts promotion and Black urban displacement: Exploring the paradox of the positive in government public relations and urban renewal discourse, was honored with the 2024 Outstanding Scholarly Article Award by the African American Communication and Culture Division of the National Communication Association.

The awards committee described Waymer's scholarship as "exceptional" and thanked him for his "hard work and for demonstrating AACCD'S commitment to centering issues concerning African Americans and Black ethnicity in your scholarship."

 


Shannon Bowen

Shannon Bowen, Marlene Neill and Denise Bortree were awarded the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication Top Ethics in PR Pedagogy Award.

This award is a distinguished honor given annually to one exemplary paper in the field of ethics in public relations pedagogy. It recognizes groundbreaking research that significantly contributes to the understanding and teaching of ethics and responsibility in public communication.

 


Funded Research and Grants

Sabrina Habib and Jeff Williams are Co-PIs on a $500,000 project from the U.S. Department of Justice, “Microtrainings on Critical Policing Issues:  Creating and evaluating accessible, digestible trainings based on the Excellence in Policing and Public Safety (EPPS) Masters in Public Safety Leadership.”  They will be working with colleagues from the Excellence in Policing and Public Safety Program at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law.

Feili Tu-Keefner (PI), and Brett Robertson (Co-PI) - Project Library PREPARE: Planning, Response, Emergency Preparedness, and Resilience Education - $249,721


 

USC Propel Programs

Anli Xiao and Haley Hatfield were accepted into the USC Propel Research Mentorship Program. This one-year training program is designed to prepare faculty for securing federal grants. The application process is highly competitive, and acceptance into this program signifies the university’s recognition of exceptional research capabilities.

Sabrina Habib and Linwan Wu were accepted in the Propel AI Program which is offered by the USC vice president's office. They will represent the CIC in this one-year campus-wide discussion on AI-related research. 

 

 


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