March 3, 2025
In the fall of 2022, Dr. Christy Zempter returned to her roots to work for Shawnee State University. Initially from Minford, Ohio, Dr. Zempter bounced around Huntington, Columbus, and Athens before coming back to Scioto County to build the communication major at SSU.
“I'm originally from Minford in Scioto County,” Dr. Zempter said. “I was a journalism major at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, came back for a few years after college and have always been going back and forth to visit family whether I was living in Columbus or Athens.”
After her graduating with her undergraduate degree, she worked as a journalist for over 17 years before returning to school herself.
“I decided I wanted to go back and pursue graduate degrees in communication studies,” Dr. Zempter stated. “I got a master's degree at Ohio University and then went directly from that into my Ph.D. program at Ohio University. I finished my doctoral degree in 2018. Then, from there I went directly into work at Ohio University.”
Working for several years mainly in an administrative role at OU, Dr. Zempter wanted a slight change leading her to SSU. The university had an opening for a communication professor, who would work directly with students each day and could build a program from the ground up.
“I got here right at the beginning of the communication major,” she said. “Professor Linden and I are the primary faculty members. We teach almost all the classes in the program, so it was really exciting from a creative standpoint to be part of starting a program.”
The pair has built a program that is different from the typical communication major at other universities. Dr. Zempter uses her past career in journalism to build news writing classes that give the student a sense of what it’s like to be in a newsroom.
“I think for students, we're a little bit different from a lot of communication programs,” Dr. Zempter explained. “Our program is very broad. It gives students an opportunity to explore a lot of different possibilities about what communication might look like as a career for them.”
Along with giving students experience in a newsroom, the communication program is evolving to incorporate hands-on experiences in other areas of communication as well.
“We try to incorporate as much experiential learning into the program as we can,” she stated. “We have news writing classes, a podcasting class this semester, and a social media management class where students are actually creating content and running social media accounts for the university.”
Ideal for students wanting to pursue a career in journalism, corporate communication, publishing, or public relations, the SSU communication program allows students to develop theoretical and practical communication skills in the main areas of communication studies. In Dr. Zempter’s nearly three years at SSU, she has been able to build a program to aid new journalists and communication professionals.
To learn more about the Communication program at Shawnee State University, visit shawnee.edu/communication.