Top Gunn

Department of Communication Studies Associate Professor Joshua Gunn was recently awarded the “Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award” for 2015, which honors one faculty member across campus for excellence in mentoring graduate students each year.

Prior to joining the Moody College of Communication in 2005, Gunn was an assistant professor at Louisiana State University. He’s authored one book with another two in production and won the Communication Graduate Student Council Professor of the Year Award three times.

“Dr. Gunn blends theory and application in each graduate seminar to create what I might call a multidimensional approach to teaching, often using a work of film or sound blended with examples from popular culture, the political moment or his own everyday experience,” said Theodore Albiniak, doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies. “He makes often arcane material accessible, without diluting its rigor. I mention this because it is the most difficult part of teaching.”

Roger Gatchet, a Ph.D. graduate of the program, said that Gunn prepares students for the rigors of navigating the academic job market and even creates custom handbooks for his advisees containing a sample teaching portfolio, chapter on how to submit and revise a manuscript for publication and a section on preparing for job interviews.

“He has continued to be a trusted source for advice, encouragement and networking after I completed my degree,” said Gatchet, now an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Eastern New Mexico University. “Ever since I started my first tenure-track professor appointment in 2011, there hasn't been a semester that has gone by where I haven't revisited one of his syllabi, lecture notes from one of his seminars or the advisee handbook he creates for those who work with him.”

All five recipients of the 2015 Awards for Excellence in Graduate Education were formally recognized this month at the Granof Awards for Excellence in Graduate Education Awards Ceremony.