The professor of strategic communications and A.J. Fletcher Professor in Communications succeeds Dean Rochelle Ford, who was not too long ago chosen because the eighth president of Dillard College.
Kenn Gaither, professor of strategic communications and A.J. Fletcher Professor in Communications, has been named interim dean of the College of Communications. He’ll succeed Dean Rochelle Ford, who will change into the eighth president of Dillard College, Louisiana’s first traditionally black college, on July 1.
Since becoming a member of the school at Elon in 2004, Gaither has been a visual and energetic member of the College of Communications, incomes promotions to affiliate professor in 2010 and full professor in 2016. In 2021, his contributions to the college have been formally acknowledged with an endowed professorship – the A.J. Fletcher Professorship in Communications. The honour acknowledged his continued excellence as a trainer, mentor, scholar and peer educator. Along with his work within the classroom, Gaither has beforehand served as director of the Communications Fellows program and concluded a decade-long tenure as affiliate dean in 2020.
Gaither expressed pleasure for his new position and famous the robust management the varsity has loved since its inception, referencing each Ford and Paul Parsons, the varsity’s founding dean.
“It’s an honor to comply with the extraordinary management the College of Communications has maintained through the years,” Gaither stated. “My aim is to honor our previous however embrace our future by offering continuity and catalyzing our momentum.”
Following a profitable profession in public relations, Gaither obtained his doctorate from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the place he was a Park Fellow and acknowledged as a prime doctoral scholar. He arrived at Elon as an assistant professor and has taught undergraduate and graduate degree programs – a capability and flexibility that has led colleagues to name him a “Swiss Military Knife.”
In programs comparable to Communications in a International Age, Public Relations/Company Citizenship, a senior seminar in worldwide public relations and Public Opinion via New Media, Gaither has constantly obtained excessive marks from his college students. He has additionally participated in examine overseas applications in Brazil and Turkey, and co-taught the Holocaust Journey course in Europe in Winter Time period 2022.
In 2021, Gaither was named to the Board of Advisors for The Plank Middle for Management in Public Relations, a number one useful resource in PR business. In spring 2022, he was additionally chosen as considered one of six finalists for the PRNews Excellent Educator of the Yr award, which honors communicators who use their platforms to raised their very own group and the worldwide group at massive.
In the local people, Gaither has participated in Alamance County Meals on Wheels. He is also concerned within the wider tutorial group serving on the worldwide editorial advisory board for the quarterly peer-reviewed journal, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator. Moreover, he co-authored “Globalization and Public Relations in Postcolonial Nations: Challenges and Alternatives,” a 2012 guide that explored how postcolonial nations use public relations to profit residents and talk throughout cultures.
Gaither earned his bachelor’s in English writing and Portuguese with a Certificates of Latin American Research in 1993, his M.F.A. in literary journalism in 2000 from the College of Pittsburgh and his doctorate from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004.
