Faculty

Elon does not have a graduate school that implements rules about graduate faculty. Instead, each school is in charge of its own graduate program. The university does expect that faculty teaching at the graduate level have terminal degrees. When an exception is made, the dean must write a letter of justification detailing the faculty member’s professional experience and expertise.

The School of Communications faculty are teachers first, but they are also theorists and practitioners of media. All faculty members actively work to improve their teaching and are engaged in communications research according to their media specialty. Many serve as consultants with media companies and hold national positions with communications organizations. All of these activities serve to improve the quality of classroom instruction.

All faculty in the School of Communications teach at the undergraduate level, and there are none who are graduate-only. Interactive media students may work independently with any School of Communications faculty member on independent research, and the complete listing of School of Communications faculty may be viewed by clicking this link. Communications faculty 

A core of faculty, though, do concentrate on the iMedia program. That core faculty who teach in the program most years are identified below.

Core faculty

Derek Lackaff, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director

Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo; M.A., La Trobe University; B.A., University of Nebraska-Lincoln

     Brandon Booker, Lecturer

     M.F.A. University of Georgia;  M.A., Elon University; B.S. University of North Carolina at Pembroke

    Cheng Chen, Assistant Professor

    Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University; M.Phil., The Chinese University of Hong Kong; M.Sc, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; B.A., Hunan University

     Daniel Haygood, Professor

     Ph.D., M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; B.A., North Carolina State University

Phillip Motley, Jr., Professor

 M.I.D.; North Carolina State University; B.F.A., Davidson College

Amanda Sturgill, Associate Professor

Ph.D., M.S., Cornell University; B.A., University of South Carolina;  

     Kai Swanson, Assistant Professor

     M.F.A., University of Iowa; B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

     Nicole Triche, Associate Professor

     M.F.A., University of North Carolina at Greensboro; B.S., Appalachian State University

Brian Walsh, Assistant Professor

M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts; B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Qian Xu, Professor

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University; M.A., B.A., Nanjing University