ISU Bengal

Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of Thomas C. Terry Thomas C. Terry, Ph. D., has been selected as the new chair of the Mass Communication Department, beginning in the fall 2008 semester.

After a year of searching, the James E. Rogers Department of Mass Communication at ISU has announced their new department chair. Thomas C. Terry, Ph. D., has been selected and will begin his new position at the start of the fall semester in August.

Taylor is coming to ISU from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he is currently a postdoctoral research fellow and has been teaching journalism classes. With him he brings decades worth of newspaper management and journalistic experience, adding to the diversity and depth of the Mass Communication Department.

"I just fell in love with the place," Terry said of his first experience in Pocatello. "[ISU] has a wonderful faculty and students, and students are very important to me."

Terry has been involved with the media in various forms throughout his life. He owned five papers in Illinois from 1975 to 2000, including the Geneseo Republic, the Cambridge Chronicle and The Shopper. He also started both the Orion Gazette and the Riverdale Bulletin from scratch in 1992 and 1993, respectively. He sold all five papers to Liberty Group Publishing (now GateHouse Media) in 2000 and began his graduate work shortly after.

Terry received his master's degree in mass communication from UNC-CH in 2003, and received his Ph.D. in mass communications from UNC-CH in 2007. He received his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in 1975. He is currently finishing his one-year postdoctoral fellowship at UNC-CH, which will conclude in the spring.

According to Mass Communication Professor John Couper, Terry will be a valuable addition to their department.

"He's very committed to many different aspects of journalism and mass communications," Couper said. "He's ready to move into a new aspect of the field by helping develop the department."
Terry said he was initially intrigued by the opportunity to apply both his administrative experience and love of teaching in one setting. While he misses being in the everyday mix of a community paper, he said he is excited by the opportunities this new position will afford him.

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