FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”

Nelson Mandela

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

— Aristotle

“There are no secrets to success.

Daniel Hooley, Adjunct

Zevandah

Barnes has been teaching with the Department of Mass Communication at NCCU since 2014. This is his 10th year teaching at the university, and he looks forward to ten more years with faculty and students.

Prof. Hooley has seen encouraging signs since the Covid “lockdown” that students were moving past the stress and uncertainty that understandably reflected in attendance and engagement. His updated methods and class exercises respond to these changes, and feedback has been positive! He says he has really enjoyed 2023 so far.

Felecia Casey-Hicks has been the NCCU TV Studio Manager/Emerging Media Specialist since 2007. She will soon be providing student workshops for a Mellon Foundation Grant, obtained by Rachelle Gold, examines the legacies of prominent NCCU women.

Brett Chambers curated & moderated a panel for the Radio Television Digital News Directors of the Carolinas, “Getting Your First Job.” He programmed the Dr. Mac Fellowship BootCamp. In all, 16 students were placed. He is a founding chairman of the Entrepreneur’s Task Force, for the NABJ and he conducts two Media Entrepreneurship Academies with Cafe Media. He is a co-director of LEAD@Fuqua. And he was an invited panelist on WUNC-TV’s, Black Issues Forum. dePyssler has now advised the Campus Echo for 23 years. Over those years his students have garnered 281 state, regional, and national awards. This year the Campus Echo was named Best of Show Online by the NC College Media Association.

Forte-Brown is the Engagement Officer for NC10, a collaboration of the 10 North Carolina HBCUs. NC has the most HBCU’s in the nation. As we celebrate that fact, we also need to leverage the economic impact and academic genius exhibited by the state’s HBCUs.

Thomas Letts, Adjunct

Tom Letts is finishing his tenth year as an NCCU adjunct instructor teaching journalism courses. In addition to his teaching responsibilities he often pitches in at the Campus Echo to help students fine tune their reporting and writing.

Charles Grant, Adjunct

Dr. Grant accompanied his Honors Introduction to Public Speaking class on a field trip to Hill Library at NC State University. The Library offers an immersive experience into a re-enactment of a little-known speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at White Rock Baptist Church in Durham. Dr. King gave that speech in 1960 to support the Greensboro sit-ins. The vMLK Project is a virtual re-enactment since there are no recordings of the speech.

Aerial Ellis, Wells Fargo Endowed Chair

Aerial Ellis completed a two-year term as President of The PRSA Foundation. Under her leadership, the Foundation awarded over $120,000.00 in scholarships and grants to public relations and communications students, launched the Mission North “The Future Is... Fellowship,” the organization’s largest-ever individual scholarship at $20,000.00, and kicked off its HBCU-HSI Public Relations Tour with MikeWorldWide visiting campuses to meet Black and Brown public relations students and share information about scholarships and job opportunities.

Erin Berry-McCrea, Adjunct

Dr. Erin Berry-McCrea is a Principal Consultant for The Raben Group, a Public Policy Firm in Washington, DC. The firm supports non-profit and corporate client needs in the areas of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ). Additionally, Dr. Berry-McCrea’s work and research will be featured in a new text titled “Voices of the Field: DEIA Champions in Higher Education” soon to be released by IAP.

Tianduo Zhang, Ass’t. Prof.

Dr. Zhang is currently serving as Co-PI in Office of Minority grant Bull City Strong and NIH grant NC CEAL. She has raised $2,500 funds for PRSSA and presented her research at ICA and RCMI conferences.

Viki Suggs-Jones, Adjunct

Viki SuggsJones earned a ACUE certificate in the summer of 2022, promoting Active Learning - Micro-credential course.

Dr. Paulin serves as the North Carolina representative of the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Communications

Working Group. She is an investigator on four federally-funded grants focused on health disparities for Durham County and the State of North Carolina. She has two forthcoming book chapters on Spanish-language media and the pandemic. But her favorite activity is teaching and learning from her students in Mass Communication Theory & Research and Mass Media & Society.

This year Prof. Pearce completed production on his documentary entitled RHD: HIDDEN DIAGNOSIS. The film was produced in collaboration with Dr. Jamila Minga of Duke University and explores the impact of right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) on stroke survivors and their loved ones. The film is currently in contention in over forty film festivals nationwide.

Lolethia Underdue, Lecturer

DL served as a judge for the Broadcast Educators Association Festival of Media Arts Competition. She judged faculty entries from all over in the country in the Documentary category.

Shauntae White, Professor

Celebrating her 16th year at NCCU, Dr. White was appointed Interim Associate Dean for the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities this year. She also serves as a Faculty Fellow in the Office of Faculty Professional Development as well as the Coordinator for Women’s & Gender Studies.