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(Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1980)
The State University Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1986

Dr. Schwalbe has been teaching at Fredonia since 1980; he chaired the department from 1989 to 1998 and is currently serving in that position again. His teaching and research areas of interest include communication and computer technologies, mass media law, media management, and international broadcasting. In the last few years he has been very active in the area of international media development and has headed several projects in various countries in Eastern Europe and Africa that are developing private broadcast operations. He is a fanatic bowler (at one time had his professional card) and also enjoys sports (playing, watching, and coaching). He loves to travel to places most people don't want to go to. Dr. Schwalbe received a Fulbright Award to teach at the American University in Bulgaria in Fall 1997. He was also a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the University of Swaziland during the summer of 2002, and traveled to the University of Pecs in Hungary as a lecturer/researcher in fall 2004 as part of the Fulbright Scholar Program.

Following a 27-year tenure at SUNY Fredonia, Professor Dan Berggren left the faculty in 2004 to pursue his music career full time. He now resides in Ballston Spa, N.Y. Visit his Web site at www.berggrenfolk.com.

Dr. Brigance joined the communication faculty in 1998. She teaches Communication Studies courses such as Gender and Communication, Communication Theory, and Persuasion. She also teaches Rhetoric and Criticism, a department core course. Her teaching and research interests revolve around a curiosity about everyday public persuasion, such as political rhetoric, product advertising and entertainment venues like film, television, and public spaces like Disneyland and historical sites. Her most recent presentations and publications have focused on the representation of gender by women’s history museums and historical sites. Before teaching college, Dr. Brigance worked in corporate communications and marketing for heath care and arts organizations. In her spare time, Dr. Brigance enjoys traveling, reading, practicing Tai Chi, and watching independent and foreign films.

Ann R. Carden is an assistant professor of communication at the SUNY Fredonia, where she teaches public relations. She has 21 years experience managing public relations and 11 years experience in broadcast journalism. She is the co-author of Public Relations Worktext: A Writing and Planning Resource (2^nd ed.) and has written chapters for two other books -- Leaning to Teach: What You Need to Know to Develop a Successful Career as a Public Relations Educator (3^rd ed.), which was released in November 2003, and Public Relations Theory, scheduled for release in 2005. Ann’s research interest focuses on the use of public relations in the travel and tourism industry. Her research on the industry’s use of persuasion and public relations after 9/11 has received national attention. She is the recipient of 15 Excalibur Awards for excellence in public relations programming presented by the Buffalo/Niagara chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. She was named the chapter’s Public Relations Practitioner of the Year in 2001 and is one of 30 public relations practitioners in Western New York Accredited in Public Relations by PRSA. Ann received a master’s degree in public relations management from Buffalo State College and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from West Virginia University.

Dr. Chilberg came to Fredonia in 1987. He teaches several courses including Fundamentals of Communication, Communication Research and Survey Methods, Group Communication and Organizational Communication. His teaching philosophy and practices emphasize applied learning as a way to develop students' abilities to use course knowledge through work-related projects. Numerous communication projects serving the communication needs of the department and campus community have been produced under his supervision. He is also the advisor to the Applied Communication Association, a student organization that has produced many of the communication service projects. He believes that you just don't learn about communication -- you use it to make a difference. He conducts research in the area of group communication and is an expert in the art and science of conducting meetings. His present research interests are in facilitating dialogical conversation for group and organizational learning. He has served as a meeting facilitator, trainer, and consultant on effective meeting communication practices for corporate and public organizations. He is presently working on the development and assessment of student oral communication competencies as part of the college’s general education program and conducting research on the efficacy of speaking across the curriculum programs. He spends his leisure time making wine, gardening, cooking, horseback riding, and discovering the wonders of life with his wife, Janet, and son, Jackson.

Nefin Dinc has a master's in fine arts in documentary film production from the University of North Texas. Among the films she has directed, produced, and edited is the recent documentary about Greek refugees and their music entitled "Rebetiko: The Song of Two Cities." The film was screened in May at the Flying Broom Women's Film Festival in Ankara as well as the Dallas Video Festival in August. Her thesis film on Whirling Dervishes will be screened on Dallas' PBS channel, KERA, in September. Ms. Dinc was born in Turkey and directed her first documentary, "The Republic Train," for Turkish Radio and Television in 2000.

Dr. Han is one of the department's newest faculty members; his teaching area covers public relations, public opinion, research methods and various mass communication courses. Dr. Han's main research interests include public relations, news framing and framing effects in electoral or non-electoral civic engagement, online public opinion, opinion polls in elections, Internet-based media sociology and mediated health communication. Dr. Han taught at the Journalism School of Fudan University, Shanghai, China, for four years before entering the doctorate program in mass communications at S.I.Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Dr. Han also worked at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Shanghai, where he served a number of leading multinational corporations as public relations specialist. He received his bachelor's degree of economics from Nankai University in 1994 and his master's degree in journalism from Fudan University in 2000. He and his wife have a 3-year-old son.

After 25 years of professional work in the film and television industry, Ms. Jackson returned to teaching with the same enthusiasm that drove her success in the field. Her work included corporate television, educational films, broadcast video and feature films, managing Francis Ford Coppola's studio in San Francisco. Recently, she has produced and directed several documentary programs for Public Television. Her series of video poems will tour throughout the states, showcased in galleries and museums. Ms. Jackson's background in production offers students knowledge beyond the academic tradition.

Dr. Johnson's career in broadcasting began in 1981 at WHIL-FM in Mobile, Ala. During her broadcasting career, she was an announcer, music programmer, producer, music director, and station manager at public radio stations in Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida. Her past radio productions include programs about American popular song, the music of Scandinavia, classical music, folk music, the blues, public affairs, and a college sports network. She produced and/or hosted programming that featured a number of prominent individuals including President Clinton, Sen. Hillary Clinton, former Sen. Dale Bumpers, Phillip Glass, Roberta Peters, Fred Waring, Robert Moog, Alvin Poussaint, Paolo Soleri, John Harbison, Aprile Millo, and many others. Her research interests include the history and regulation of noncommercial and religious broadcasting, the regulation of electronic media, and media history. She holds an master's degree in business administration from the University of West Florida and a bachelor's degree in music from Florida State University.

Professor Bill Jungels has been producing documentaries since he left the faculty in 2003. His recent work, "Crossing the Line," follows the struggle of workers in Mexico, the United States and Canada against the negative results of free trade.

About to be released is "Broken Limbs, Fallen Fruit," a documentary that looks at the life of a poor Mayan family from the highlands of Chiapas in Southern Mexico. Much of the focus is on how immigration is negotiated within the family. The DVD also contains documentary chapters that look into the economic roots of immigration and the part that trade agreements and neo-liberal economics play in this.

Although "officially" retired, Professor Malcolm still occasionally teaches communication courses. In his spare time, he is helping to build a hiking trail, which, he says, has taken him from Newhouse, where he received his degree, to the outhouse.

Tracy Marafiote joined the department in 2007; she teaches in the communication studies area, including intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, organizational communication, and public speaking. Dr. Marafiote received her doctorate from the University of Utah, where her teaching background included communication criticism and negotiation/interviewing, as well as a variety of courses in the school’s gender studies program and David Eccles School of Business. Motivated to bridge her environmental activism and academic work, her current research focuses on the impact of cultural forces and identities on social change in general and, specifically, on the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. As a scholar of critical/cultural studies and environmental communication, her future goals include examining the intersections of gender, race, class, and nature with sustainability and environmental justice. Dr. Marafiote earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of South Florida. In her free time, she enjoys backpacking, mountain biking, and hiking in the outdoors, and cooking—and eating—diverse foods while indoors.

Joining the communication faculty in fall 2000, Ms. McDonough teaches Rhetoric of Vision and Sound, Multimedia Integration, and supervises the Sheldon Multimedia Lab. Before coming to Fredonia, she taught at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. She is fascinated by the possibilities for the use of multimedia in education. In Singapore she worked on a DVD project about the cultural history of Singapore for the Ministry of Information and the Arts. As both an historian and documentary filmmaker, Ms. McDonough is interested in producing documentaries which explore the commonalities in human experience that cross temporal and cultural boundaries. Ms. McDonough enjoys hiking, travel, foreign films, and Medieval/Renaissance music. In anticipation of the winters in Fredonia, she has recently learned to cross country ski.

Professor Ploetz is joining the department this fall after 28 years in the newspaper business and is helping start the journalism major. He has worked as a reporter and editor (the past 23 at The Buffalo News), but has also been involved in radio, Web development and video documentary. One of his current projects is finishing off a video/Web documentary on the early years of the Buffalo punk rock scene. Convergence of the traditional and digital media is one of Professor Ploetz's goals, both in his own work and as he helps prepare students for a new era in journalism.

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