Next stop, an Advertising Conference...

I'm going to the American Academy of Advertising conference at the end of the month in Reno, Nevada. I'm presenting a paper on the leadership lessons of J. Walter Thompson from 1936-1938 based on research I did last spring break at the archives at Duke library. I am presenting the only advertising history paper, so it should be interesting.

The Dean of our J-school, Tom Bowers, nominated me to write about a grad student's perspective on school and academic life for the conference newsletter, so I thought I'd share what I wrote.

The greatest challenge for me as a graduate student has been going back to school as an older student. My first career after Business School was in corporate sales and marketing, and my second career was as an adjunct instructor of marketing at Penn State and Wake Forest University. Once I realized that my true love was academia, my husband, who is a professor at Wake Forest, encouraged me to get a Ph.D. I interviewed UNC first, to make sure that I would not be too old for their program, and was immediately reassured that age did not matter. During that visit, I met Dr. Lois Boynton, who has been a wonderful mentor to me and is now my dissertation chair. Having a family while in school is also a challenge and is one that I have been documenting on a blog I started last year, www.newdogtricks.blogspot.com. I started this blog as a way to learn about new media by actually doing it. On my blog, you’ll also read about the most amazing experiences I have had at UNC, which have made these challenges seem insignificant by comparison. I’ve learned to become a much better teacher because of the pedagogy class taught by Tom Bowers, and I’ve learned about integrated marketing communication from Bob Lauterborn, one of the reasons I chose to attend UNC. Most of all, I have had the opportunity to develop my research and presentation skills by participating in conferences like the AAA.