Moody College names new Radio-Television-Film chair and new chief development officer

Moody College of Communication has announced two new additions to its leadership team. Cindy McCreery, a professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film, has been named chair of the department. She has served as interim since last year. Amy Gogolin, who previously led family giving initiatives for Texas Development, has been named the college’s new chief development officer.

McCreery is a professor of screenwriting and has been with UT since 2011, teaching courses on TV and feature film writing in the graduate and undergraduate programs. She was a feature writing fellow with Walt Disney/ABC, which is widely recognized as one of the entertainment industry’s most coveted writing programs. 

McCreery’s creative credits include more than 30 film and TV projects that she’s developed for studios, including New Line Cinema, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., MGM Studios, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Netflix. She also wrote and produced the award-winning independent film “I’ll Be There,” directed by RTF professor Andrew Shea, which will be distributed by Buffalo8 this fall. McCreery previously taught screenwriting at UC Santa Barbara and the UCLA Professional Program.

“I have been so fortunate to be able to have two careers that I love so much, screenwriting and teaching,” McCreery said. “To now be entrusted as chair of such an incredible program, with the best students, is completely overwhelming. I am so grateful to my colleagues in RTF and to the college for believing in me.”

McCreery became interim chair last year after the previous chair, Noah Isenberg, took over as the head of the professional programs UTNY and UTLA. 

“Over the last year, I’ve learned so much more about what we do not only in RTF but across campus, and it’s so inspiring to me how many incredible people work in our department, in Moody and UT at large,” McCreery said. “I really do believe we have a special program, and the world should know the kind of students coming out of RTF. They are incredibly thoughtful, creative and talented, and I want to make sure no student feels left behind or as though they don’t have a seat at the table. If our table doesn’t feel big enough for students, my goal is to make it bigger and add more chairs.”

Gogolin has worked for UT for the past 10 years, starting in the College of Communication in 2014 as the assistant director of development under then-Dean Rod Hart. In 2016, she moved to the role of chief development officer for the School of Undergraduate Studies and then joined Texas Development, leading family giving efforts. 

Since starting that role in 2019, UT has raised roughly $266 million from parents and grandparents, a long-overlooked group of donors that Gogolin hopes to continue working with at Moody College. Gogolin also helped establish the Longhorn Family Partners, which includes parents who have made at least a $100,000 commitment to UT while their student is enrolled. 

“Moody has done a lot of phenomenal things from the development standpoint and has accomplished a lot. I look at this as an opportunity for a new chapter and to grow and do some really exciting collaborative things across campus,” Gogolin said. “The bigger gifts come with big ideas, cross-campus collaboration and interdisciplinary efforts. Those are the things that really excite me.”