A Comm & fIlm phd

A quarter of a century later, Dr. Wendy Atkins-Sayre, current chair of the department, said it's a milestone worth celebrating.

“What we should especially be celebrating with our program is what we have accomplished in only 25 years and it’s pretty significant,” said Atkins-Sayre. “We have 88 graduates so far and more than 25 of those 88 graduates come from underrepresented populations –with that percentage changing rapidly in recent years.”

Thompson-Hayes and Mahaffey were not only the first two graduates of the program, but they were also the first to be mentored by Professor John Campbell, who has since retired.

“The program had an aura of excitement about it, and I wanted to be a part of it,” said Thompson-Hayes. She had attended University of Arkansas-Little Rock for her master’s and begun her Ph.D. at Southern Miss before coming to Memphis. “I just sort of dropped Southern Miss, even though it was a great school. I had a feeling I needed to be in Memphis.”

For Mahaffey, a native of Arizona, the decision to attend the University of Memphis was a bit more circuitous. After getting his master’s degree at Syracuse University, he wanted to be a professor and was advised to try Memphis. “It’s a new program, but it should be a good one,” he thought.

The program was anything but traditional, according to Thompson-Hayes. “What kind of classes were offered? Very relaxed. No matter what, they were conducted in a seminar format. And so, you had to read, go in and understand the material, and then you would talk. Even in class, there weren’t a lot of lectures or somebody coming in with a bunch of pre-prepared PowerPoints. There was some of that, but it was very conversational with everybody.”

Thompson-Hayes also appreciated the mentorship and guidance she received from her professors. “To have that is really a wonderful thing. The attitude was, they just weren’t helping us learn the material, but it was always like beyond here. What does it mean to be a professor and I think we got some of that.”

Mahaffey echoed the sentiment. “Mentoring from different angles really helps. I appreciated the collegiality, and I went into my first interviews not intimidated by our colleagues on the other side of that table. That was helpful – feeling like peers –even though we weren’t quite peers yet with our mentors.”

For Campbell, the pride he felt when Thompson-Hayes and Mahaffey graduated was immeasurable, and he told them so during a recent Zoom meeting. “One of the proudest moments of my life was when both of you came up in your robes with everything but the hood and you both looked really dignified,” he recalled. “I was both proud of you for what you’d achieved and it’s never harmful for people in our life, in our line of work, to look the part as well as to be able to execute it with some panache.”

But Campbell is quick to point out that the program's success was a team effort. “I think this was a group endeavor from the very first,” he said. “The first generation, which you never forget being [Dr. Richard} Ranta, [Dr. John] Bakke and [Dr.] Mike Osborn who did the heavy political lifting about which we shall never know the full truth and the way in which the University of Memphis…got its foot in the door and we got this program.”

Ranta, the original Dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts, which encompasses the Department of Communication and Film, held the position for 39 years before retiring in 2016. At that time, he was the sole dean of the college. Bakke was instrumental in initiating the Ph.D. program and is now a professor emeritus, while Osborn served as the Department of Communication and Film's chair until 1995 and has since retired as a professor emeritus.

“UofM doctoral graduates are not only successful in finding academic positions, but they are also receiving universitywide and nation-wide recognition,” said Atkins-Sayre.

In the past two years, two graduate students, Natonya Blackmun Listach and Lionnell Smith, were awarded the Benson-Campbell Dissertation Award at the National Communication Association meeting. The NCA has also honored two faculty members with prestigious awards in the same time period.

Two Communication and Film students were also commended by the university in 2022 with awards: Noor Ghazal Aswad won the Morton Dissertation Award and JoAnna Boudreaux was recognized with the Graduate Assistant Meritorious Teaching Award.

Six doctoral students graduated in 2022 and have gone on to put their degree to good use — ranging from teaching at the University of Alabama to becoming a lead pastor at a local church.

Atkins-Sayre said the department’s doctoral program stands out for its diversity and takes extraordinary pride in the fact that graduates are playing a significant role in shaping the future of higher education by bringing a wealth of unique backgrounds and perspectives to other campuses.

He Orange Mound Neighborhood

in Memphis has had a tough history. Built in the 1800s, it was once a thriving community, known for being one of the largest self-sufficient Black neighborhoods in the country. However, things took a turn for the worse in the 1920s due to abandonment, disinvestment and racism. This led to a decline in development and economic growth, according to a recent report from the Mound Up! Neighborhood Revitalization Plan.

The plan was developed by students and faculty from Rhodes College's Urban Studies program, in collaboration with Juice Orange Mound and residents, who, despite all the challenges, always come together to make things better.

Mary Mitchell, who's also known as “Ms. Mary” and is the unofficial historian of Orange Mound, agrees. She's lived her whole life in the historic Black community and says you can't just label Orange Mound with a general stereotype.

“Anything great about Memphis originated from Orange Mound,” Mitchell told the Commercial Appeal during an interview in 2019.

And she is confident that any future greatness will also have roots there.

“I think that the future of Memphis at large could only accelerate by embracing the past, the present and future of what Orange Mound has given to the City of Memphis,” Mitchell said.

Dr. Marika Dalley Snider, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Memphis, wants to make sure that past is protected for the future.

She and a team of graduate architecture students created an immersive 3D model of Orange Mound —