Howard awarded UNC teaching honor
An associate professor of communication at East Carolina University is among 17 faculty members in the University of North Carolina system to receive an award for Excellence in Teaching.
John Howard, who teaches undergraduate courses in organizational communication, persuasion and argumentation, along with graduate courses in social media influence, will be awarded $7,500 in cash and a bronze medallion. A member of the UNC Board of Governors will present Howard with the award during spring commencement May 6.
“Dr. Howard is an expert at getting his students to engage with the topic and think about the impact of communication in all aspects of their lives,” said Linda Kean, director of the School of Communication. “He engages the students in critical thinking on topics such as employer-employee communication, creating persuasive messages in the media, and how relationships are developed, maintained and destroyed through communication.”
Kean said many students with only a passing interest in communication have been drawn to the field by Howard’s teaching. “Dr. Howard has taught our introductory communication course and is responsible for taking students with a fleeting interest in the area and transforming them into some of our strongest majors,” she said.
Howard has taught at ECU since August 2003. He holds doctoral and master’s degrees in communication studies and interpersonal communication from Bowling Green State University, a master’s in public policy analysis from the University of Rochester and a bachelor’s in political science from the State University of New York, Binghamton.
His research interests include how the media portray war, soldiers and gender and communication between pilots and air traffic controllers. His work has appeared in Women & Language, Communications Research and Women’s Studies in Communication.
The UNC Board of Governors established the Excellence in Teaching Awards in 1994 to reward good teaching across the university. Each year one award goes to a tenured faculty member from each UNC campus.
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