Greetings, Community!
We’ve seen a lot of change in these past few months – a new Communication Department Chair, the newly established Kakos School of Arts and Sciences, and new leadership at the highest levels of the college. With all of these changes, there has also been a lot of re-envisioning of old, established ways of thinking and being at Manhattan College, and as a result, a lot of uncertainty about the future. But amidst the chaos we’ve faced…or rather, are still facing this semester, we’ve also had some triumphs. Here, I’d like to focus on our department’s successes this semester.
First, we inducted 18 new students into Lambda Pi Eta in a beautiful ceremony on October 2oth. Lambda Pi Eta is the National Communication Association’s official honor society and our department’s best students get recognized for this honor every year. It was wonderful to celebrate with the officers, new inductees and their families, and faculty advisor Michael Plugh.
Our students in college clubs have been doing exceptional work this semester as well. Despite significant budget cuts in student engagement and reduced budgets for every club, Communication students have rallied and achieved what they’re known for – creatively accomplishing amazing work in the face of adversity. The Quadrangle has continued publishing online and revived The Jasper Jist, the online “push” to the newspaper that we all know and love. MC PRSSA is preparing for the Bateman Case Study competition this year, MCTV and WRCM are continuing their programming from our TV studio in Leo Hall and from the radio station in RLC respectively, and Lotus Magazine launched a new issue in the first week of December. The Communication Club was revived this semester and has put together various events for our students. Finally, I would like to make a special mention of our newly constituted Sports Media Production club under the leadership of senior Matt Catania and faculty advisor Michael Quinn – I look forward to seeing what they accomplish as the club completes its first year in Spring 2024!
Our internship students are making us proud in the workplace as well. Over the summer and this semester, we’ve had students interning at NBCUniversal, BronxNet, Commonweal Magazine, Ideamix, Modeworld, Port Authority of NY & NJ, Cleary Gottlieb, Running Subway Productions, Journey Further, and for a National Science Foundation grant.
Graduates from May 2023 have already shown great success, with our alumni landing positions at the New York Post, NBC Sports, NBC News, Fox News, the Bustle Digital Group, Foursquare, The NFL, the Brooklyn Nets, the MLB Network, Citi Group, and Morgan Stanley.
Speaking of graduates, in keeping with our tradition, another one of our graduates, Abby Welte, Communication Department graduate from the class of 2017, is going to be back in the classroom teaching the new course Digital Marketing and AdTech for us in spring 2024. We’re very excited to welcome her back to Manhattan College!
In other curricular news, we are excited to announce that we are teaching two new courses this semester – Podcasting, and Digital Cultures: Finsta, Fortnite & Fandom. We are also working toward offering new courses in future in the areas of Sports Branding, Digital Analytics, Streaming Sports and Packages, and News Production, beyond the Digital Marketing and AdTech course mentioned above. Our students are already achieving mastery in their concentration areas, and our new direction in curricular offerings will enable to them to work across specialized areas to support cross-concentration work as they will in the media industries they’re planning to enter.
All of the above to say – we continue to do what we do best, which is support our students to achieve all they can in their time with us and after they graduate. Aristotle used the term eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία), typically translated as “flourishing,” to describe the good we strive toward – a life well lived. In the time the Manhattan College Communication Department has been in existence, we’ve continued to strive toward preparing and placing students at the most well-known communication and media companies in the city at the heart of the media world. I’m happy to say that we’ve achieved our own little taste of eudaimonia. Our faculty, students, and graduates continue to excel.
Please read this semester’s comm·unity, which features more of our departmental news and the wonderful things our students and faculty are doing. Our social media channels, @MCCOMMDEPT or Manhattan College Communication Department on Instagram, LinkedIn,
and Facebook also showcase so much more of our amazing student accomplishments. So please make sure to follow us there.
Let me finish by congratulating our December graduates, and reiterate how proud I remain of all that we work toward amidst all the challenges we’ve faced lately. In all that we are and do, may we continue to flourish.
Dr. Arshia Anwer
Chair, Communication Department
