Internal communication is important...

I enjoy reading our local paper, the Durham Herald-Sun, each day, to catch up on local news. I'm one of the small minority of people who read a physical piece of paper each day, as more and more people are reading online news. I do that, too.

Today, however, I am so glad I did. That is how I found out that my school at UNC, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has a new Dean, Jean Folkerts.

We actually knew a bit about her as the author of our mass comm history textbook. She is currently at George Washington University. The school brought in three candidates and she was the only one I was able to hear. She saw me sitting in the back row (quietly) and actually came up to me at the end of her presentation and asked who I was and introduced herself. I was impressed.

Anyway, I figured maybe I had not read my email recently, so I went back to my unc email to look for the announcement--not there. I surfed the online edition of the Daily Tar Heel--it is there.

For a communications school, we don't seem to be doing a very good job communicating with the people who are most important--those who live and breathe and work there everyday.

I've been thinking about internal communication as a dissertation topic: I think I'm onto something.