In spring 2023, Dr. Melissa Foster will be teaching a new class that fulfills the Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World general education requirement, COMM 2850: Media and Citizenship. Under the new requirements for the College of Arts & Sciences, the Citizenship theme aims to encourage students to understand and explore their own citizenship and apply that knowledge to their everyday lives. With this communication course she created herself within the Citizenship theme, Foster will teach her students to interact with the media in a way that promotes informed, active and responsible citizenship.
Foster also teaches other GE classes within the School of Communication including COMM 2367: Persuasive Communication, COMM 1101: History of Communication and the GE Launch Bookend course, a seminar completed during a student’s first three semesters to help them define their academic and career goals and the path to reach intercultural competence. She guides her students through the use of media in well-informed and responsible ways, showing them how to spot persuasive tactics and be resistant to misinformation.
One of the biggest goals for Foster is to help her students make a real, tangible change in the world. In one of her classes, her students are assigned to pick an issue they see in everyday life, such as racism, homophobia, natural disasters, health promotion, addressing mental health issues, etc. Then, they attempt to persuade their classmates to get involved in a non-profit organization that contributes to helping solve that problem.
“When you’re sitting around thinking, ‘Someone should do something about this,’ that generally means you should go and do something about it,” Foster said. “Every time I’m feeling burnt out or frustrated in the direction that the world is going, it’s very nice to see students taking these courses, recognizing that there are problems in the world, and wanting to be a part of the solution.”
Foster is passionate about teaching, but she began her career by conducting research in the field of psychology. She received her bachelor’s and first master’s degree in Experimental Psychology, where she even studied fish vision for a while. Foster went on to receive another master’s and a doctoral degree from The Ohio State University in Communication. Foster continued to engage in researching and studying communication, which soon morphed into a teaching career.
“The main reason that I started to become interested in teaching is basically that I had good teachers,” Foster said. “I started to notice how much I was learning and how I was able to make connections between what I was learning in the classroom and my real life.”
Foster continues to pursue research topics, publish her own work and lead undergraduate students in their research as well. So far, three of her students have become lead authors on studies they have collaborated on.
Article by student Andrea Paolucci
