The School of Strategic Communication, in partnership with the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers, proudly recognizes the second graduating cohort from the Certified Public Communicator program, the nation’s advanced executive education program for public information professionals.

Twenty public communication professionals participated in the cohort, which included 95 hours of instruction in residence since July 2014. The post-baccalaureate, graduate-level residential program includes extensive coursework and each graduate must create a three-year comprehensive communication plan. These plans are reviewed and approved by their organizations and by strategic communication professors from TCU’s School of Strategic Communication, part of the Bob Schieffer College of Communication.

Photo Credit: Bianca Castro (2015)

Congratulations to summer graduates from these cities and other public-sector organizations:

Ginger Awtry, Westlake, Texas
Dana Baird, Frisco, Texas
Jessica Beyer, Blue Earth County, Minn.
Corky Brown, Cedar Hill, Texas
Catherine Carlton, MHMR Tarrant County
Angela Fritz, Rosenberg, Texas
Jennie Huerta, Cedar Park, Texas
Lacey Lively, College Station, Texas
Erin Mynatt, Melissa, Texas
Maria Rios, Texas Council of Community Centers
Pilar Schank, Southlake, Texas
Arianne Shipley, Mansfield, Texas
Sabreana Smith, Cedar Hill (Texas) ISD
Beth Trimble, DeSoto (Texas) ISD
Terri Waggoner, Pflugerville, Texas
Jay Warren, Arlington, Texas
Stephanie Zavala, (Water) Fort Worth
Karen Zitomer, Roswell, Ga.
Two additional students will receive certificates later this year.

The curriculum offers leadership training and coursework designed for the complexities and challenges of communicating with residents and stakeholders specifically for professionals working for cities, counties, school districts and other public and public-private agencies.The third cohort is already underway with 24 participants stretching nationwide to include representatives from cities and counties in Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas, plus from several schools, school districts and colleges in Texas.

Since 2013 TCU has partnered with TAMIO to offer this first-of-its-kind program to public information professionals. Early in 2015, another group joined the partnership: The National Association of County Information Officers.

ABOUT TAMIO: TAMIO is an affiliate of the Texas Municipal League, which represents some 98 percent of Texas’ urban population through its more than 1,000 member cities and towns. Organized in 1913 as an information association of 14 municipalities, TML today is a progressive, multi-million dollar enterprise offering a wide variety of services to Texas cities. As partners, TML and TAMIO offer the best in representation and assistance to cities and their respective colleagues.

ABOUT TCU’s SCHOOL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION: Based in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication, the school serves about 400 undergraduate and master’s students studying advertising and public relations through an integrated curriculum. The school, with 13 full-time faculty members, has offered the Certified Public Communicator program since 2013. For more information about the school, please visit www.stco.tcu.edu ; for more information about the certificate program, please visit www.certifiedpubliccommunicator.org.

Very proud of Shelly Crossland for completing her thesis in May and graduating with honors from TCU – it was so fun to work together on her project related to social media use by non-profits. Now it is time for her to go do awesome stuff out in the real world!

I am very excited to announce that my most recent research, conducted with Susan Kleiser and Stacy Grau, is now available through Computers in Human Behavior. Here is a preview …

Title: “Too Much Facebook?: An exploratory examination of social media fatigue”

Authors: Laura F. Bright, Susan Bardi Kleiser, and Stacy Landreth Grau

Abstract: Social media usage levels continue to climb generating copious amounts of content. As more people crowd social media (e.g. Facebook), and create content, some research points to the existence of a concept called social media fatigue. Social media fatigue is defined as a user’s tendency to back away from social media participation when s/he becomes overwhelmed with information. Lang’s (2000) limited capacity model is used to understand the role of information overload for social media fatigue. This research examines the concept of social media fatigue and its proposed antecedents: social media efficacy, helpfulness, confidence and privacy concerns. Using confirmatory regression, this research determined that privacy concerns and confidence have the greatest predictive value for social media fatigue. This paper has theoretical implications for not only LCM but also other technology acceptance models such as TAM and UTAUT and UTAUT2. It also has implications for those trying to engage with online audiences and their subsequent reactions to that attempt at engagement. Several future research ideas are explored as well.

It was excellent to be part of the Texas Media Sweet Sixteen Homecoming Event in October at the new Belo Center for Media at UT Austin. Not only was it great to see old friends and faculty, I was also lucky to receive the award for being from the earliest Texas Media cohort. Looking forward to the next reunion!
(Photo Credit: Laura Kincaid)

I am very excited to be featured in the ongoing TCU ad campaign for “Doers, Dreamers, and Trailblazers” – includes a nice write up about my research and teaching. And, it is just in time for my tenure packet submission ;).