C&J Welcomes New Faculty

Departmental News

Posted: November 12, 2014

The Department of Communication and Journalism is pleased to welcome three new faculty members: Dr. Jaci Devine on Main Campus, and Laura Burton and Dr. Cleophas Muneri at UNMWest.

Dr. Devine is a Lecturer who teaches a variety of courses in the C&J department and supervises the Public Speaking course. Her goal as the coordinator of UNM’s Public Speaking classes is to help instructors create a learning environment that challenges students and builds community to help students become more confident communicators. In her capacity as Public Speaking course coordinator, Dr. Devine also works with the First-Year Learning Community (FLC) program to help first-year students get an enriching educational experience and the tools to succeed at UNM. Dr. Devine comes to UNM with several years of business communication experience, and she enjoys teaching skills-based courses like Public Speaking, Professional Communication, Business & Professional Speaking, and, of course, FLCs.

Burton (PhD candidate) and Dr. Muneri are two of the first four full-time faculty hires for UNMWest. In Fall 2014, UNMWest experienced an 80% increase in class enrollment from the previous Fall semester. With two full-time UNMWest faculty, C&J is a meaningful part of this expansion. Dr. Muneri and Burton are offering a wide range of communication courses to meet the degree requirements for communication majors as well as for non-majors. Both enjoy the small class sizes that allow for focused one-on-one attention for students to meet their educational needs. Both are at the forefront of new initiatives as UNMWest focusing on engaging with the community as well as providing students real-world experiential learning opportunities. For example, both new lecturers, working collaboratively with Dr. Beth Miller, Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives of UNMWest and the Sandoval Economic Alliance, incorporated internship-type projects into their courses the first semester at UNMWest. These projects significantly benefited students while also assisting a local non-profit organization.