SC&I, Rutgers University - Stories about our faculty

Professor Jack Bratich

Professor Jack Bratich Professor Jack Bratich is more than just a highly credentialed teacher for students in the Rutgers MCIS program. He’s a published author, editor, speaker, peer reviewer for communication journals… and yes, even a librarian.

In a world dominated by mass media controlled by large corporations, Bratich finds his cultural respite in the collective publishing underground of artists and activists as a volunteer librarian at the ABC No Rio Library in his Lower East Side of Manhattan neighborhood. It is at this venue that similar minds congregate to debate and share the ideas that impact our culture and society.

Bratich brings these ideas to the MCIS classroom, where he integrates deep analyses of media systems and vehicles. Students also learn the conceptual underpinnings of the kind of research projects they want to embark upon.

“Theoretically oriented classes like mine push people to think about the fundamental questions,” says Bratich. “What other ways are there to ask that question, and what social significance might come out of the research they do?”

Bratich’s courses are a blend of media and cultural studies. Students take cultural approaches to media that involve examining how media are imbedded in social and historical contexts and what people do with the media messages and forms they receive. Additionally, students dive into the institutional side of media and learn how media are produced in certain kinds of industries and the economics behind them. And they get to examine the actual text and products that are produced.

“In one of our courses, we focused on reality TV, and all of our media examples were drawn from reality shows and books about that genre,” says Bratich. “I’ve also taught about consumer media culture, primarily advertising and PR, and the practices of consumption.”
Bratich continued, “In my courses you don’t just learn how people create effective campaigns, you learn what its significance was in U.S. culture . . . things like how certain kind of scare tactics were used in 1920’s, the psychology behind it, and how that’s been entered into the way society is shaped. “

An MCIS degree does not just benefit students with a focus on research. Bratich believes students on non-research tracks benefit from his lessons as well.

“Any kind of analyst or researcher in any institution, academic or not, needs to have a grasp about certain fundamental concepts and the theories that underlie the concepts about what they want to ask,” says Bratich. “They live in a world that’s interconnected. My class allows them to see the interconnection between what seems to be small and isolated and how those are connected to a broader significance.”

Bratich currently sits on the editorial board for three communication and media journals, including Journal of Communication Inquiry, Critical Studies in Media Communication and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. In addition, Bratich’s first book was released this year, entitled Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture, which focuses on the phenomenon of conspiracy theories in our culture. Bratich also does service with professional groups like the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association.

By Eliot Harrison

Professor Marya Doerfel
As a long time professor and a past director of the MCIS program, Marya Doerfel finds it extremely easy to answer the question of why this program is so important for students: “Because it makes your mind sharper and better able to handle the unexpected, no matter what career you chose.”
Doerfel teaches Social Networks, Organizational Communication, and Research Methods, and she knows how important networking skills are to a student’s career. “When you go into our master’s program you start networking with people with similar career interests as you, which helps you establish initial contacts,” she said. “You never know where you’re going get that next job. It’s all about the networks.”
When Doerfel is not spending her time teaching, she is researching the impact that social networking can have on business relationships and how people work together to meet their goals. She travels around the world to study these impacts, most recently visiting New Orleans to try to understand how the city businesses are rebuilding their professional contacts and surviving after Hurricane Katrina.
“I’ve been there over a dozen times in the two years after Katrina,” says Doerfel. “I’ve been doing my own networking and gathering data. It’s kind of cool but also kind of sad. But the people really like being interviewed because they don’t want to be forgotten.”
Doerfel uses the interesting data she gathers from around the world and brings it back to the classroom. “I gather data from real people who work for real companies,” she noted. “It becomes great story telling and good examples for what I’m trying to teach in my class that would normally be abstract theoretical concepts.”
“In the Research Methods class I’ll use my experiences to show how to do interviews and surveys and try to recruit participants,” she says. “In my Organizational Communication class I’ll talk about the challenges that leaders have managing their corporate relations. I can take any of my studies and use them as examples in the classes I teach. It makes it a lot easier to teach and a lot easier to learn, too.”
Doerfel said that graduate school is a time when students can actually get their feet wet and apply the concepts they studied as undergraduates.
“When you’re an undergrad you’re memorizing and learning new concepts you’ve never seen before, and so much of your work is still in the learning phase, but at master’s level you’re thinking about those concepts and starting to use your brain in an abstract way to make good decisions.”
The MCIS program will benefit graduates no matter what careers they head into. “A master’s degree adds another level of maturity to your education,” she emphasized. “Regardless of what career path you choose, the master’s degree helps you think at a higher level.”
By Genna Scaffa
Professor Laurie Lewis
Professor Laurie Lewis cannot contain her excitement about the MCIS program, which she has directed for the last two years.
“There is a great spirit about this program,” she says brightly. “We have a really wonderful set of faculty. The faculty like their students; they like their students’ ideas, their perspectives, and the conversations they have. Our faculty truly enrich the program.”
Lewis, a Ph. D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, takes care of all administration business, recruits applicants, and advisees MCIS students throughout their required 36-credit course load.

Lewis believes that MCIS is a special master’s program because it encourages growth for students solely interested in a master’s level course. “Ours is unique among many master’s programs in that we have dedicated classes to master’s students,” she explained. “In my experience a lot of Communication master’s and Ph.D. programs are completely mixed and as a result the masters students don’t always get the lion’s share of the attention. In MCIS athe whole program is designed FOR masters students and the variety of goals they have.” This exclusivity adds a positive twist to the advancement of one’s studies, Lewis said.
Not only the dedicated Lewis truly enjoys her work at MCIS and says she is honored to be a part of such a widely praised program. “I enjoy teaching in the program—the students are so interesting and dynamic that they enrich my own scholarship. They often bring experiences and perspectives that are refreshing and engaging”
Lewis encourages applications from folks with a wide variety of backgrounds. About half of our students come with significant work experience in diverse careers. The other half are very recent graduates of undergraduate programs in a variety of majors. “That diversity of background is a key to the excitement and uniqueness of MCIS,” said Lewis.
By Lauren Ricca
Professor Stew Mohr
When asked how does MCIS degree at Rutgers University better equips its students for success, professor Stew Mohr wastes no time.
“I think it does two things,” stated Mohr. “It gives them practical exposure to the tools, techniques, and activities they will be using as they move out into the workforce. At the same time it provides a substantial theoretical framework so that they understand what they are doing.”
Mohr stressed the program’s unique balance between practice and theory. For example, to understand organizational communication students must learn what kind of things are communicated, why, and in what ways (how).
Mohr is one of many professors critical to the success of a MCIS program that provide students with knowledge and background that will enhance their future and current careers.
Mohr, who received his doctorate from Rutgers in 2007, brings to the table years of experience in the field of information technology. After 28 years in business in the fields of aerospace and telecommunications, he felt the need to share what he had learned with others.
“I wanted to take some of the knowledge I learned and bring it back and work with other people and take some of the practical things I learned and marry them with the academic and theoretical bases I learned in the Ph.D program.”
Students in the MCIS program have the privilege of taking Mohr’s Knowledge Management class. They learn the importance and power of knowledge in society and the impact knowledge can have on an organization when it is shared.
Mohr is currently involved in a research project in conjunction with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where he uses the communication aspects of knowledge management. In the study Mohr and others employ motivational interviewing and other methods in efforts to improve practice-based care for diabetes patients.
By Brian Leifer
Professor John Pavlik

With the many changes in technology in the past decade, new media have grown into a topic of keen interest, and MCIS is lucky to have as part of its faculty Professor John Pavlik, one of the leading new media researchers and commentators in the nation.
Since 2003, Pavlik has helped lead MCIS’s Media Ethics and Media Studies courses; both are taught entirely through Sakai, an online system. The Media Studies course, which he teaches more frequently, is a survey of media issues and how new technology, specifically digital, is changing our world. Pavlik has his students create blogs to help them further embrace the idea of new media.
When he is not teaching for MCIS, Pavlik chairs SC&I’ undergraduate Department of Journalism and Media Studies. His outside new media projects examine how technology is affecting the way we tell stories. Currently, Pavlik is working with others to develop a new type of “situated documentary,” which employs wearable technology.
“It creates a form of story-telling that’s participatory,” explained Pavlik. “You go to a place where events happened in the past, and then through this situated documentary produced by journalists you’re able to relive those past events. It may either be recent past or distant past.”
He is also experimenting with locative media, a similar concept, but it allows people to remotely access a story.
Another project that Pavlik is working on is similar to a virtual newsroom. “This allows us to reinvent journalism but without requiring us to use the traditional structure of journalism or media delivery,” he said.
He is testing this idea with Bayshorenews.com, a small news operation in Middletown, NJ, Monmouth County. The aim is to make the newspaper digital and interactive while still keeping the cost low and retaining journalistic integrity.
A possible new course for the MCIS program may revolve around video games, said Pavlik as he picked up an article he recently wrote about video games.
“People are so enamored with playing video games,” he noted. “It cuts across all walks of life, all age groups, and both genders.” Pavlik said. “It’s a huge part of our media world now, and there aren’t many courses at any university that deal with video games.”
Moreover, Pavlik sees video games not only as a possible course topic but also as a teaching tool.
Understanding new media – and even video gaming – may give MCIS students the opportunity to take their careers to the next level. According to Pavlik, MCIS prepares students for higher leadership roles and helps lead them toward obtaining their PhD if they so chose.
By Tosin Bada


Joan Chabrak, Graduate Services Coordinator for MCIS
No one knows more about the ins and outs of the MCIS program than Joan Chabrak, its graduate services coordinator. Chabrak has been working for the university for 24 years, cheerfully providing students with guidance in academic programs.
Chabrak works very closely with the MCIS program faculty and staff, but she says, “The most rewarding part of my job is dealing with students each and every day.”
The MCIS program had an enrollment of 42 students for the fall 2008 semester, reported Chabrak, and she had lots of face time with all of them. She likes that the program draws a diverse group of students with a wide variety of goals and with a variety of employment, educational, cultural, and national backgrounds.
Chabrak describes the program as a convenient way to earn a masters degree with an interesting mix of core and elective courses that all can be taken in the evening, to cater to the schedules of all students. “The MCIS program prepares students for careers in many different leadership areas including management, corporate communication, health communication, human resources consulting, media technology management, research, and many more,” she said.
Although choosing the right courses is very important, “I also work with applicants during the admissions portion of process,” said Chabrak. “The most important piece of advice I can provide to the applicant is to be diligent about the deadlines for the application. Because the MCIS is a graduate degree, applicants have to be aware that the application must be processed both here at SC&I and at the Graduate and Professional Admissions Office.”
Chabrak recommends that students utilize the online application system to apply for the program at www.gradstudy.rutgers.edu. Applications to the program are evaluated on the basis of previous academic records, three letters of recommendation, a personal statement, and performance on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Students can track the status of their application using the same website and are able to determine what different pieces of the application package are missing.
For more information about admission to the program, Chabrak is available to meet with students Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in SC&I Room 214. She communicates with most students via e-mail and can be reached at chabrak@scils.rutgers.edu or by phone at 732-932-7500, extension 8270.
“I am so happy to see more and more students applying for Graduate and Professional degree programs here at Rutgers,” said Chabrak. “I look forward to speaking with many more students interested in the MCIS program in the future.”
By Brent Vader