Faculty member Mary Chayko has been promoted to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “This is the first time a teaching focused promotion has been made to this level at Rutgers –New Brunswick that any of us can remember,” said SC&I’s Dean Jonathan Potter. “I am proud that a SC&I faculty member has been able to push this important boundary.”
Chayko has taught for over 25 years, first in the Sociology department at Rutgers as a Ph.D. student, then at St. Elizabeth University where she was a tenured full professor of Sociology, and for the last eight years at Rutgers, where she has served as SC&I’s inaugural interdisciplinary teaching professor and director of undergraduate interdisciplinary studies.
Chayko’s record of teaching excellence, design of pedagogy, innovative forms of course delivery and use of new media, and national and international impact were highlighted in her promotion review, along with “her genuine passion for engaging with students,” Dean Potter noted.
“As a sociologist specializing in digital communication and technology, I was excited for the opportunity to initiate, develop, and teach in programs that cross disciplinary boundaries,” Chayko said. “For me, teaching, research, and program development are indivisible; they inform and support one another, and together, they bring all kinds of new dimensions to each.”
Chayko has taught courses throughout SC&I, for the Ph.D. and Master of Communication and Media programs, the Communication and Journalism and Media Studies departments, in addition to the Digital Communication, Information and Media and Gender and Media programs, which she directs.
Chayko’s record of teaching excellence, design of pedagogy, innovative forms of course delivery and use of new media, and national and international impact were highlighted in her promotion review, along with “her genuine passion for engaging with students,” Dean Potter noted.
Associate Dean for Programs and Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Media Studies Dafna Lemish said, “As chair of the committee of distinguished professors that reviewed Professor Chayko’s case, I can attest that in the discussion, committee members used superlatives to describe Professor Chayko’s accomplishments, such as ‘brilliant,’ ‘amazing,’ and ‘outstanding.’ We believe that the promotion of Professor Chayko to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor will recognize not only her outstanding accomplishments, but will serve as a testimony to the teaching excellence that Rutgers University seeks and rewards.”
Chayko has been honored twice by Rutgers for her teaching, receiving the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019 and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributors to Undergraduate Education in 1993, when she was a teaching assistant in the Sociology department at Rutgers. She also designed the pedagogy for the first course at Rutgers University to be certified by the Quality Matters (QM) organization for excellence in hybrid course design, Digital Technology and Disruptive Change, in 2015.
For the past four years, Chayko has served as Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Honors College – New Brunswick. She teaches, mentors, and conducts research with Honors College students and has a faculty living space in the Honors College building. She is also an affiliate faculty member of the Sociology department and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department at Rutgers, serving on many qualifying exam and dissertation committees.
“I’m thrilled about this promotion,” Chayko shared, “but I am especially happy that it has happened at Rutgers University, where I’m a three-time alum. My children Ryan and Morgan both graduated from Rutgers, and my husband Glenn Crooks was the women’s soccer coach here for 14 years."
Chayko is a member of the Center for Women and Work, the Institute for Women’s Leadership, and is a faculty mentor for the Women’s Soccer and Women’s Lacrosse teams. Affiliations like these, plus her work on gender stereotyping on digital platforms with Associate Professor Vivek Singh and the Behavioral Informatics Lab, and on digital scholarly identity with Professor Marie Radford’s Cynergy research group, “help me stay current and engaged as an instructor and a member of the Rutgers community,” Chayko said.
Chayko publishes and speaks nationally and internationally on the impact of digital technology on society. Her work is noted for its interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from the fields of sociology, psychology, communication, media studies, and information studies, among others. In 2019, reflecting on the 50th “birthday” of the internet, she wrote “What is 50 years on the internet worth to humanity?” for NBC News Online.
She has written four books, the most recent of which, “Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life,” has just been released in its third edition by Sage Publishing. “Superconnected” is a popular textbook on digital life and society that has been adopted in courses at over 60 colleges and universities and translated into three languages, Korean, Serbian, and Turkish. Reviews of the book and instructional materials can be found at http://superconnectedblog.com.
“I’m thrilled about this promotion,” Chayko shared, “but I am especially happy that it has happened at Rutgers University, where I’m a three-time alum. My children Ryan and Morgan both graduated from Rutgers, and my husband Glenn Crooks was the women’s soccer coach here for 14 years. Rutgers has been our home -- literally now at the Honors College – and I am grateful to all my students and colleagues, at Rutgers and at St. Elizabeth University, who have been so supportive of me over the years.”
Learn more about the Digital Communication, Information, and Media and Gender and Media programs that Chayko directs on the Rutgers School of Communication and Information website.
