Points of Pride

School of Advertising & Public Relations (AdvPR)

• Eight faculty members have been honored with teaching awards.
• The advertising program ranked fourth in presentations made at American Academy of Advertising conferences (1993-2003), and three faculty members were among the 15 most productive scholars in the country.
• In 2009, AdvPR established its first organized research unit in Risk and Health Communication.
• In 2008, a program review team wrote of the school, “The School of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Tennessee is a top-ten program recognized for its quality teaching, scholarly productivity, and service to the profession. Strong leadership, productive scholars, and gifted students are the foundation for the School’s success.”
• Tennessee students have been accepted into the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Multicultural Advertising Intern Program and the American Advertising Federation’s Most Promising Minority Student program in 2008 and 2009.

School of Communication Studies (CS)

• All faculty members have been honored with teaching awards.
• Three faculty members have served on editorial boards of Journal of Business Communication, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of Communication Studies and EDRA.
• Over the past seven years, more than 100 UTK students and 100 Michigan State University students have had the ultimate combined field experience learning about cross cultural communication by studying abroad in Paris and Brussels with Professor Ken Levine.
• Sponsors Southeast’s largest public-speaking contest (McClung Public Speaking Contest) with more than 800 UTK students involved in the competition each semester.
• Each faculty member has published in top-tier journals such as Communication Monographs, Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research and Journal of Business Communication.
• CS has had eight Torchbearers (UTK’s highest undergraduate award) over the past 20 years, the largest number of students from any UTK unit.

School of Information Sciences (SIS)

• SIS the most diverse faculty at UTK.
• The school has UTK’s largest distance education master’s program.
• SIS is the home of the State of Tennessee’s only Center for Children’s and Young Adult Literature.
• The school ranked #1 in U.S. in journal articles published per capita by LIS faculties, #2 in U.S. LIS programs in overall journal articles published; #3 in researchers’ cumulative program rankings.
• SIS is among top 10 North American LIS programs in grants and contracts received.
• Professor Carol Tenopir ranked nation’s #1 research-productive LIS faculty member; received 2009 ASIST Award of Merit.
• U.S. News & World Report named SIS #16 LIS program in North America.
• SIS has collaborative agreements and interchanges with universities in Uganda and Puerto Rico.

School of Journalism & Electronic Media (JEM)

• Faculty members have won multiple Fulbright awards, and national and international research awards, fellowships, teaching and creative awards from institutions such as the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press and Politics, American Press Institute, the Radio Television News Directors Foundation/Knight Foundation's Educator, the International Radio and Television Society, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
• Has student and faculty exchange agreements with university-based journalism programs in Denmark, Romania, China and Austria.
• Award winning student-produced news website, www.tnjn.com, has taken the lead in establishing the Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN) with dozens of member universities from around the country.
• WUTK Rated #1 radio station in Knoxville in Metro Pulse poll and has been nominated twice for college radio station of the year by College Music Journal.
• Seminal works in Web journalism, media history, international communications, media management and economics, writing, and editing written by JEM faculty members; a number of them were translated into other languages.
• Over the past three years, JEM received a grant of $1.2 million from USAID/IREX, to improve journalism education in the Middle East, and grants of approximately $50,000 each from Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the McCormick Foundation, and the Scripps Howard Foundation.
• Under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, JEM is a leading provider of in-country training and at UTK for journalists and media managers from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Baltic states.

Points of General Interest

• CCI’s Center for Information and Communication Studies (CICS) has more than $7 million in grants from such organizations as NSF, IMLS, USAID/IREX, USGS, NCFPD, and from for-profit and non-profit publishers.
• CICS has over $2 million in science information and communication contract work with UT-Battelle thanks to its close working relationship with Oak Ridge National Labs.
• Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation, the new Scripps Convergence Lab provides CCI students with the opportunity to engage in disciplinary and technological convergence in a 4,000 square foot facility where they utilize state-of-the-art hardware and software to create, produce, manage and market digital content.
• More than 120 people attended the CCI Diversity Student Leaders Society’s inaugural “Experiencing Diversity Banquet” in 2009. DSLS is a college-wide student organization focused on providing CCI students with the skills they need to compete in a global workplace and to create a climate that affirms and endorses diversity.
• In the last two years, CCI’s Internationalization Program doubled the number of students studying abroad. In 2009, three CCI faculty led courses – one to France and Belgium and two to Cyprus. Seven faculty-led programs are being offered in 2010.
•  A recent CCI alumni survey found that of CCI graduates reported the degree(s) they received from the College were relevant to very relevant to both their first job after graduation (average = 4.18 out of 5) and their current job (average = 4.0 out of 5).

** Points contained herein edited by staff and faculty of the College of Communication & Information. Accurate as of November 3, 2009.