Emeritus Faculty

Emeritus faculty are faculty members who have retired from SJSU. We are proud to recognize the COMM Emeritus faculty who have played a significant role in shaping our department.

• Genelle Austin-Lett

  • Educator since 1968; BA University of Illinois; MA Northern Illinois University; Bradley University; Former debater; Forensics assistant 1971-1978, Illinois Central College

    Genelle Austin-Lett served as the Director of Forensics at SJSU from 1991 – 2013. The team won many regional, national, and international awards. She traveled with students all around the country and the world. One of her rules was that students had to attend a mandatory cultural event when the team traveled abroad. Often it was the first time students had been to the ballet or opera. She cared deeply for students and her colleagues. Genelle published two books: Talk to Yourself: Experiencing Intrapersonal Communication (1976) and How to Write the Perfect Ballot: A Handbook for Judging High School Speech and Debate Tournament (1998). She also founded Biblewise. In 2012, Genelle received SJSU’s Outstanding Lecturer Award and the Outstanding Professor Award from SJSU Spartan Quarterback Club.

• Judith Barnes

  • Judith Barnes began as a lecturer in the COMM Studies Department before being hired as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Barnes focused on working with high school speech instructors to build speech programs, instead of someone tied to a narrow research program. She was active in the California Speech Communication Association, which met with the California High School Speech Association, the organization that planned high school tournaments affiliated with the National Forensics League. At the time, speech communication was not taught in high schools. High School teachers were credentialed in English Language Arts, but this did not extend beyond reading and writing to speech communication. Dr. Barnes worked to revise the Credentialing Guidelines making the case for speech instruction.

• Marquita Byrd

  • Bio coming soon!

• Marie B. Carr (1917-2006)

  • Stanford University, 1957 Ph.D., Stanford University, 1942 MA, San Jose State College, 1939 BA

    Faculty: San Jose State University, 1946-1986, San Jose State College, 1939-1942

    Dr. Marie Carr is remembered as a remarkable person. She lived her whole life in the family home with her mother, Minnie Carr, just off San Carlos Street. She never left home for her education, attending public schools, SJSU and Stanford. At the same time, she traveled widely. She loved Classical Rhetoric and quoted key phrases in Latin from time to time in conversation. She was a very caring Department Chair and very democratic in her approach to governance. She consulted widely before making the hard decisions. At the same, she had strict standards for her students. In her grade roster booklets (which the university used these before computers), it is evident that her Public Speaking students had to approach eloquence to earn a grade above “C.” Dr. Carr also served as a representative, Civil Service Commission, 12th Region.

    Dr. Carr left an endowment to the Communication Studies Department for student scholarships. She passed away in 2006, her obituary.

• Ted M. Coopman

  • University of Washington, 2008, PhD, 2008, San Jose State, M.S., 1995, COMM Studies: 2007-2020.

    Ted founded and coordinated (2013-2019) the Communications Studies Social Media Team; founded and program planned (2011-2018) the iResearch Scholar Slam Student conference; and developed and taught courses on research methods, internet/digital media, and social movements among others. He developed programs and trained faculty across the university on instructional technology and online teaching. Ted served on the Executive Board (2005-2011) of the Association of Internet Researchers and reviewed for a dozen academic journals. His research on free radio and activist uses of technology was informed by 30 years of activism and has appeared in 13 academic publications including Critical Studies in Media Communication; the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media; as well as in “Representing Resistance: Media, Civil Disobedience, and the Global Justice Movement,” and “Communication Activism, Vol. 2.” Ted has presented 44 competitively selected conference papers nationally and internationally. He lives and volunteers as a neighborhood organizer in Eugene, Oregon.

• Shannon Doyle

  • Bio coming soon!

• David H. Elliot

  • Stanford University, 1970, PhD, University of Oregon, 1957, MS, University of Oregon, 1956, BS, Northwest Christian College, 1953, BTh

    San Jose State University 1957-1997

    During his 40 year career at SJSU, Dr. David Elliot had a rich and varied career at San Jose State and within the CSU system. Dr. Elliot began teaching in what was then the Speech and Drama Department in 1957. Dr. Elliot earned his doctorate in 1970 and was successively promoted to Full Professor and elected Chair of the department. Dr. Elliot served two terms as department chair for a total of 12 year. Dr. Elliot held numerous positions in academic governance, including: Vice Chair and Chair, SJSU Academic Senate and Vice Chair and Chair, CSU Statewide Academic Senate (two terms). He also held numerous administrative positions, including: Associate Dean, College of Social Sciences, SJSU; Interim Associate Executive Vice President, SJSU; and Director, The Consortium of the California State University. Beyond the University, Dr. Elliot has served as a communication consultant and as a professional parliamentarian. He was Parliamentarian for the California Association of Realtors for nineteen years and also "worked" several meetings of the National Association of Realtors.

    Dr. Elliot’s publication "Collegial Decision Making and Collective Bargaining: Some Symbiotic Possibilities," published in the May, 1978 edition of the Academic Senator, the newsletter of the CSU Academic Senate provided the conceptual basis for the tso called "Fail Safe" language in AB 1091, the California Higher Education Employee Relations Act (HEERA). It was designed to assure the preservation of collegial governance mechanisms (senates and faculty committees) in the collective bargaining context.

    Dr. Elliot has continued his advocacy for CSU faculty rights and benefits since retirement through various leadership positions in CSU-ERFA, serving as its President from 2005-2006 and remaining active on its Executive Committee.

• Elizabeth Harris

  • Professor Harris taught for SJSU from 1988 to 2022. Additional contributions include service as Lecturer representative to the department, Assistant Director and tutor for the COMM Lab, two terms on the student fairness committee, and work as faculty Advisor for the “Blue" Student Club.

• Tim Hegstrom

  • University of Colorado, Boulder, Communication,1984 Ph.D., University of Montana, Missoula, 1970 M.A., Brigham Young University, 1970 B.A.

    Communication Studies Faculty: 1984-2004

    Dr. Tim Hegstrom served on the Communication STudies joined the COMM Studies department as a lecturer in 1984, promoted to Associate Professor in 1988 and Full Professor in 2004. He served as Communication Studies, Department Chair from 1993-1997 and Dean of the College of Social Sciences from 2004-2010.

    As Professor of Communication Studies at San Jose State University, Dr. Hegstrom taught courses in organizational communication, group decision-making, communication theory and research, and directed an internship program. His main research program dealt with stakeholder voice, the attempt on the part of an organization’s various stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, minority stockholders) to make their views known to management and management’s response to such attempts. In 1998 he served as Visiting Professor of Communication at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

    As Dean of the College of Social Sciences, Dr. Hegstrom created a Center for Global Innovation and Immigration in partnership with the Division of International and Extended Studies, and he re-established the SJSU Survey and Policy Research institute in partnership with the College of Business.

    After retirement from SJSU, from 2011-2014, he served as Vice Provost and Dean in the UAE at Higher Colleges of Technology and United Arab Emirates University. Dr. Hegstrom also worked as a management communication consultant for over fifty organizations including executive coaching, resolving inter-department conflicts, and customer relations. He lived in San Jose as a youth and graduated from Campbell High School, the original campus of the Campbell Union High School District, an institution he later served for eight years as a member of the Board of Trustees.

• Stephen Hinerman

  • Bio coming soon!

• Hans Hohmann

  • Bio coming soon!

• Dennis Jaehne

  • Dennis joined the COMM faculty at SJSU in 1989, after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Utah. He served as Department Chair from 1997-2009. Dennis became Associate Vice President of Undergraduate Studies in July 2009, and since 2015 has worked with the Provost's Office.

    Dennis is known across campus for his contributions to curriculum, student success, and faculty development. Here in the COMM department, we also know his outstanding contributions as professor, chair, and mentor.

• James Lull

  • James Lull specializes in media studies, cultural studies, and evolutionary communication. He is author or editor of more than a dozen books that have been translated into many languages. His latest work, Evolutionary Communication: An Introduction and The Language of Life: How Communication Drives Human Evolution (with Eduardo Neiva) established evolutionary communication as a sub-discipline in Communication Studies. He hosts the Evolutionary Communication channel on YouTube. 

    A pioneer of ethnographic research in communication research, Professor Lull’s articles appear in New Media and Society, Human Communication Research, the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and many other journals in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. He has been granted Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards (Brazil and Mexico) and a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship (England), and has taught courses in Brazil, Mexico, China, Venezuela, Finland, Denmark, Chile, Argentina, and Sweden. He holds honorary doctorates and professorships at several universities in Europe and Latin America. Website

• Shawn Spano

  • Bio coming soon!

• Jo Sprague

  • Bio coming soon!

• J. Michael Sproule

  • Emeritus professor J. Michael Sproule’s research in the history of propaganda and rhetoric culminates in Propaganda and Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Democratic Vernaculars (Routledge, 2020), together with five further books and 50-plus articles or chapters. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1983-1984), he is a two-time recipient (1988, 2013) of the Golden Anniversary Monograph award of the National Communication Association.  Sproule served as president of NCA in 2007.  Between 1970 and 2008 Sproule taught more than 6000 undergraduates and graduate students, also serving as chair (University of Texas, Permian Basin; Indiana University Southeast), director (Bowling Green State University), and dean (Saint Louis University).  Sproule held appointments as visiting lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley, and visiting scholar, Drew University.  Married to Betty A. Sproule since 1973 and the father of two sons, John and Kevin, he resides in Pacific Grove, California. 

• Federico Varona

  • Dr. Varona was born in Spain. In 1964 he moved to Guatemala and got the High School Teaching Credential from the Normal School in Antigua Guatemala City (1967). Then he moved to Nicaragua to teach in two La Salle High Schools in Nicaragua (1967-1972). In 1976 he earned degrees in Theology and Psychology at the Pontificia Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. He was Founder, First Chair and Professor of the Instituto Centro Americano de Ciencias Religiosas for 5 years (1977-1981) in Guatemala City. He also was First Chair and Professor of the Communication Sciences Department for 5 years (1981-1986) at the Universidad Rafael Landívar of Guatemala City.

    In 1986 Dr. Varona came to the USA as a Fulbright scholar and got the Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas in 1991. Since arriving at San José State University in 1991, Dr. Varona has been a member of the Communication Studies department. He taught courses in Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication and Research Methods. Dr. Varona has numerous publications in the areas of his expertise in Organizational Communication and Appreciative Inquiry, including four books and twenty-four journal articles published in Spain, the United States and various countries in Latin America. Dr. Varona has been invited to do dozens of presentations, seminars, and workshops around the world. The current focus of his consulting, writing and research is on the Appreciative Inquiry paradigm in Spanish speaking countries.

• Beth Von Till

  • Beth joined the Communication Studies Department as a lecturer in 1987 specializing in working with non-native speakers and communication strategies at the nexus of organizational and intercultural communication. She served as an undergraduate advisor in Communication Studies for many years, and notably developed COMM 165P: Communication in Philanthropy course. Beth was director of SJSU’s nationally-recognized COMM Studies Lab, and represented SJSU as the president of the National Association of Communication Centers. Beth served on the Academic Senate for twelve years, including two terms as Senate Chair. She served on two WASC steering committee and as special support to three Provosts and one President. She served on the University Library Board, the Tower Foundation Board and the Athletics Board. Beth was named a Salzburg Fellow in 2007, 2010, and 2011.

    In recognition of her accomplishments, Beth received the College of Social Sciences’ Meritorious Service Award in 2013, The Phi Kappa Phi distinguished alumni Award in 2014 and was named the University’s Outstanding Lecturer in 2007.

• Philip Wander

  • Bio coming soon!

• Richard Webb

  • Bio coming soon!