Professional Development
These professional development experiences collectively shape my teaching, portfolio design, and client work, reinforcing my commitment to ethical practice, critical thinking, and real-world application in integrated marketing communication.
Commitment to Learning
Throughout my time in the UNCW IMC MA program, I actively pursued professional development that strengthens my teaching, research, and applied communication work. The certificates and institutes below reflect an ongoing commitment to ethical, inclusive, and evidence-based practice in higher education and integrated marketing communication.
Graduate Student Teaching Academy — 10-Hour Certificate (UNCW CTE)
I completed the UNCW Center for Teaching Excellence's Graduate Student Teaching Academy, a 10-hour certificate program focused on course design, active learning, and inclusive, student-centered pedagogy. The training gave me practical strategies for structuring assignments, presentations, and assessments around clear learning outcomes — skills I apply directly in my William Peace University courses. It reflects my ongoing investment in teaching as a scholarly practice, not just a professional duty.
AI Summer Institute — Mind and Machine: Purposeful Pedagogy in the Age of AI (UNCW CTE)
As part of UNCW's Community of Practice: Advancing Teaching and Learning with AI, I completed the two-day, multi-session AI Summer Institute 2026 | Mind Over Machine: Purposeful Pedagogy in the AI Era, exploring the instructional uses and limits of generative AI in higher education. Sessions centered on academic integrity, AI and media literacy, and designing assignments that push students to critically evaluate AI-generated content rather than accept it at face value. This experience directly shapes how I incorporate AI tools into my communication and media courses — thoughtfully, ethically, and with student learning as the priority.
Data-Driven Decision-Making for the Real World (LinkedIn Learning)
This LinkedIn Learning course sharpened how I use data to inform strategic decisions — from recognizing when a question needs more evidence to identifying gaps in the data already on hand. I came away with a clearer framework for evaluating research design, weighing data sources, and distinguishing correlation from causation in practical communication and business contexts. It's a skill set I bring directly into my own research and into how I teach students to support claims with evidence.
Human Subjects Research / IRB Training (CITI Program)
To meet the ethical standards required for research involving human participants, I completed the CITI Program's Human Subjects Research training through UNCW, covering informed consent, privacy, and the protection of vulnerable populations in social and behavioral research. This training underlies both my academic research — including my gamification study — and any applied audience research I conduct professionally. It reflects my belief that ethical rigor is inseparable from good research design.
Professional Communication Training
Throughout the IMC program, I completed several short-form courses through LinkedIn Learning and UNCW's computer-based trainings to refine my professional communication and to code-switch effectively across audiences, settings, and purposes. These included Writing Skills for Public Relations, Polishing Your Feedback Skills, Teamwork Foundations, and Collaboration Principles and Process. Together, they reinforced habits I carry into both my teaching and client work: clear writing, constructive feedback, and effective collaboration on shared goals.
