FROM THE CHAIR
While every academic year brings new challenges, it also brings new proof of our department’s unrelenting momentum. Through the talent of our students, the commitment of our faculty and staff, and the support of our alumni, Communication Arts is making an impact more widely and across more boundaries than ever before.
In course meetings and career events like Comm Arts at Work, our students doggedly pursue their dreams and find opportunities to apply their communication skills to many different needs. Our undergraduates become media professionals, corporate executives, community activists, and more. PhD students bring their cutting-edge perspectives to other campuses throughout the world. Our students are everywhere–adaptive, dynamic, and refusing to be boxed in.
Communication Arts faculty and staff find their own ways to push limits, challenge divides, and make impacts well beyond the department. We serve in leadership roles across campus and drive shared discoveries. From Professor Allison Prasch’s campus-wide efforts to strengthen democracy through better communication to Professor Jeremy Morris’ advancement of AI research across the humanities, we push the UW research mission. As that mission expands, we welcome new faculty this year who study topics from Latinidad media to digital conspiracy theories.
None of this would be possible without our alumni, who commit time and resources out of a love for their Communication Arts experiences and a belief that the future can be even brighter. Among the recent initiatives owing to this support are new scholarships that expand access to our program and an off-campus experience launching next summer to help students explore creative careers. Our alumni sustain our momentum while challenging us to reinvent the standards for departmental excellence.
These combined efforts across the Communication Arts community make us unstoppable, uncontainable, and undoubtedly well-positioned for continued success. Thank you for being a part of that exciting future.
Sincerely,
Derek Johnson
Department Chair, Communication Arts Partners Professor