Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Carrie West is Chair and Associate Professor of Communication Studies and is the Director of the Quality Enhancement Plan at Schreiner University. Dr. West earned her PhD in Communication from the University of Denver with a focus on interpersonal and family communication, and a special concentration in research methods. Dr. West’s primary area of research is resilience, especially resilience related to grief. Dr. West’s interest in this area initially began when she was widowed at 29. Since then, Dr. West has focused her academic and consulting career in these areas.

Dr. West believes better communication skills and insights can help others improve their personal and professional lives and that has been the ultimate focus of her work at the University and with other organizations. In one of her favorite courses to teach, Interpersonal Communication, students learn about concepts and theories that apply to their lives every day. Good interpersonal skills make us better and more successful in academics, personal relationships, careers, and professional relationships, and can also influence our mental and physical health. Dr. West feels it’s great to teach about a subject where it can make students’ lives better right now and in the future. The Communication Studies Department recently added some new courses to the degree plan and she’s really excited to get to teach The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication next year so students can also learn about effective ways of dealing with things like deception, social aggression, and betrayal.

Dr. West’s desire to use communication to help others improve their lives and her passion for the widowed community led her to Michele Neff Hernandez, the Founder and Executive Director of Soaring Spirits International. In 2011 Dr. West read an article about Camp Widow in USA Today and thought, “These are my people!” In a wonderful demonstration of mutual support, Soaring Spirits and the widowed community responded with eagerness to help Dr. West collect data needed for her dissertation.

In addition to her teaching and research, Dr. West has also been selected as the Director of Schreiner University current Quality Enhancement Plan which is focused on improving Academic Self-Efficacy in our students. In this role, Dr. West has been able to help instructors of the First-year Seminar refine the course to help students feel more confident in their ability to successfully navigate and complete their degrees. One of the changes to this course is to allow some faculty to teach about their passion topics. Dr. West is teaching a course examining resilient behaviors in super-hero films to help first-year students learn about what resilience and grit are and how they can apply that to their college experience.

Also, at Schreiner University, Dr. West has mentored students in undergraduate research that has been presented at national and regional academic conferences. Her students have also presented workshops to girls ages 12-17 about how to be the hero of their own story at the We Are Girls event in Austin. She has also published academic articles and book chapters on widowhood and resilience.

Since then, Dr. West has continued to work with Soaring Spirits International and Michele Neff Hernandez. She has been going back to present at their camps every year since completing her dissertation, has served on their advisory board, and is currently on their curriculum development and leadership teams. This collaboration has also led to a partnership between Schreiner University and Soaring Spirits International. Schreiner University opened the SSI Resilience Center at Schreiner University in October of 2017. There, Dr. West and Michele Neff Hernandez hold workshops once each year for widowed people in the Kerrville community and the space is used for undergraduate research projects.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies

Dr. West is the Director of Research for the center and works with fellow faculty member and Co-director Dr. Samuel Dreeben on resilience research. Dr. West and Dr. Dreeben worked with SSI, and Michele Neff Hernandez to create and validate a resilience scale for widowed people. Since that was publish in September of 2019, it has been translated into multiple languages and being used for research all over the world. The scale is also being used daily as a self-evaluation tool for widowed people who can find it on the SSI webpages, take the self-report scale, and then are directed to resources or suggestions to help them improve the areas in which they score the lowest.

Dr. West and Michele Neff Hernandez have also conducted workshops based on their resilience research. For example, they have facilitated workshops for National Fallen Firefighters Foundation in Emmitsburg Maryland and in Portland Maine. Michele and Carrie presented on improving family resilience at the annual meeting of the National Alliance of Grieving Children. Next year Dr. West and Michele Neff Hernandez will also present their research at the Annual meeting of the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Carrie West, PhD