Kendall Phillips named 2008 University Scholar/Teacher of the Year
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Erica Blust
Director of Communications and Media Relations
College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University
(315) 443-5891
Kendall Phillips, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, has received the 2008 University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award from SU.
The Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church has sponsored the University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award at Syracuse University each year since 1982 to recognize the teaching and scholarship of an outstanding professor. This award gives explicit emphasis to the dual nature of a faculty member's responsibilities as a scholar or creative artist and as a teacher.
Phillips joined the department in 1999 and has since been recognized with several awards that highlight the quality of his teaching, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Phillips is a leading scholar of rhetoric, public discourse and rhetoric of popular culture. He explores these concepts through a variety of rhetorical artifacts, including comic books, film, political speeches and scientific controversies, and teaches such popular courses as “The Rhetoric of Film,” “Rhetoric and the Public Sphere” and “The Rhetoric of Popular Culture.”
Early in his SU career, Phillips served as the coordinator of the department’s graduate program and initiated a sustained effort to strengthen the master’s program through greater recruiting and curriculum development. Today, Phillips serves as the chair of the department, elected in 2007 for a three-year term.
Phillips is actively engaged in the Central New York Humanities Corridor that promotes collaborative scholarly exchange in the humanities among faculty and students from SU, Cornell University and the University of Rochester. He also helps students become active in the Syracuse community, most notably by leading SU students in a community-based public memory project with residents of the former 15th Ward in Syracuse. This project, begun in 2007, aims to engage students and the University in an effort that makes more visible the history of this African American community prior to its segmentation and dispersion several decades ago.
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