May 2, 2002
Baldasty to head merged communication units
Steve Hill
University Week
Another piece of the UW’s newest academic unit was put in place recently when Gerald Baldasty was named the first chair of the Department of Communication, scheduled to open its doors on July 1.
Baldasty has been on the School of Communications faculty since 1978. He holds an adjunct appointment in Women Studies and earned a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2000. But he will spend the next five years as chair of a department that brings together the resources of the former Department of Speech Communication and School of Communications.
The appointment was announced last week in an internal memo signed by Arts and Sciences Dean David Hodge, and divisional deans Michael Halleran and Susan Jeffords. Baldasty said his focus is squarely on the new department’s bright future.
“I’m excited about the merger between speech communication and communications,” he said. “The merger brings together two superb departments and faculties. The result will be a higher profile department and a richer department in terms of research and teaching.”
That outlook is a stark contrast to seven years ago when the units were targeted for possible elimination for budgetary reasons during the 1994-95 academic year. Both survived and have been working together ever since to enrich the study of mass communication and interpersonal communication on this campus. A 1998 Tools for Transformation grant of nearly $500,000 was used to set up interdisciplinary courses and four degree programs that also involved political science and technical communication.
That was the impetus for a move during the 2000-2001 academic year to officially merge the two units. In November 2000 faculty from both units gathered for a daylong retreat to consider what a merger might look like and if it would be useful and supported. In the subsequent winter quarter faculty voted overwhelmingly in support of the merger. Now, Baldasty says, the new unit has the potential to be a model nationally, with the real winners being UW students.
“It’s a really innovative curriculum in the sense that we’re giving both graduate students and undergraduates the very best of both mass communication and interpersonal communication,” he said. “Those fit well with one another and they are concepts that go extraordinarily well together in terms of research and teaching. The division of the two has been artificial both here and nationally. So I think we’re really setting a trend.”
It’s that kind of thinking, Hodge said, that makes Baldasty a natural for the job.
“The fact that he understands what is possible, that he understands how society is changing and how the academic community can be a part of that is a good indicator that he’s well suited for this position,” Hodge said.
Gerry Philipsen, the current speech communication chair, says Baldasty is a proven leader.
“Professor Baldasty has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for working with faculty and students in both of the consolidating units and I think I speak for everyone in speech communication in saying that we think he will be an outstanding leader for our new department,” Philipsen said.
Baldasty credits Philipsen and Tony Giffard, the current chair in communications, for leading their units through the transition. And, he says, one goal is to simply keep up their good work.
“An important part of my agenda is to continue their work,” he said. “Both Gerry and Tony have done a remarkable job in leading the two units to merger. During their tenures as chairs they have also greatly strengthened their departments — increasing endowments, facilitating faculty development and promoting research.”
Baldasty said he plans to support faculty as much as possible as they do their research and teaching. He emphasized a desire to maintain the depart-ment’s strong commitment to journalism and to continue development efforts aimed at increasing funding for the new unit.
Baldasty earned a bachelor’s and a doctorate in communications from the UW. He got his master’s in journalism from the University of Wisconsin.
