Aaron Duncan
Kathy Castle
Author
05/11/2016
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501
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Creative Producer: Aliza Brugger
Faculty Bio
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- [00:00:00.040](rock music)
- [00:00:08.136]My name is Doctor Aaron Duncan,
- [00:00:10.140]I'm a professor of practice in the
- [00:00:11.985]Department of Communication Studies
- [00:00:13.223]and the director of the Speech and Debate Program.
- [00:00:15.848]Well, when I went to college, I didn't know
- [00:00:17.309]what I wanted to major in, so I started looking
- [00:00:19.644]to things into things that I was interested in.
- [00:00:21.255]Business, politics, personal life and how to improve those,
- [00:00:25.255]and I ended up taking a bunch of courses
- [00:00:26.781]in Communication Studies and finding that
- [00:00:28.530]they all related to things that I was interested in,
- [00:00:30.578]and therefore I chose to major in it
- [00:00:32.797]and continue to study it.
- [00:00:34.215]My research focuses on popular culture,
- [00:00:37.180]sports communication, as well as political communication,
- [00:00:41.149]and I look at the way the three intersect.
- [00:00:42.994]I examine, for example, how the growth of gambling
- [00:00:46.044]in America has impacted our study of the American Dream,
- [00:00:49.799]that's the basis of my dissertation and book.
- [00:00:51.730]I also look at the ways that sports communication
- [00:00:54.386]interacts with race and class
- [00:00:56.338]and shapes our popular discourse
- [00:00:58.289]and how the three of them interact
- [00:00:59.751]to create a public and popular discourse
- [00:01:02.887]about social issues of our day.
- [00:01:05.255]One project that I'm excited about working on
- [00:01:07.452]is studying how the American Dream
- [00:01:09.362]is expressed in current political communication.
- [00:01:11.762]The American Dream is at the heart of my research
- [00:01:13.714]on a lot of things, and I'm particularly interested in
- [00:01:16.477]the ways candidates from both the Republican
- [00:01:18.428]and Democratic party are using this
- [00:01:20.722]in the argument for their campaigns.
- [00:01:22.749]So examining how those are being formed
- [00:01:24.359]and the ways that they contradict
- [00:01:26.407]and interact with each other.
- [00:01:28.060]In the undergraduate curriculum,
- [00:01:29.575]I teach Communication 101,
- [00:01:31.751]Communication in the 21st Century.
- [00:01:33.276]That's our introductory course to the discipline.
- [00:01:36.038]I also teach Theories of Persuasion,
- [00:01:38.748]The Rhetoric of Sports and Games, and Public Speaking.
- [00:01:42.482]My favorite assignment is in my Theory of Persuasion class,
- [00:01:45.511]students construct a semester-long campaign
- [00:01:48.359]where they take a public service issue,
- [00:01:50.791]something related to health or well-being,
- [00:01:53.053]or a social issue, and they construct a campaign
- [00:01:55.826]to persuade people to help solve that problem.
- [00:01:58.780]I like it because it's producing for students
- [00:02:01.011]a real, tangible product, so that when they go
- [00:02:03.229]on the job market, or they go to other places in their life,
- [00:02:05.255]they can say, "Here's what I've done with my
- [00:02:06.919]Communication Studies major, I've created an actual,
- [00:02:10.098]real-world campaign, and I can show you
- [00:02:12.413]why it's a better campaign than
- [00:02:13.788]many of the existing campaigns."
- [00:02:15.516]What I really like about the
- [00:02:16.882]Department of Communication Studies
- [00:02:18.343]is the family atmosphere.
- [00:02:19.986]The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is a big campus,
- [00:02:22.163]but when you're in the Department of Communication Studies,
- [00:02:24.007]you really feel like you have a home,
- [00:02:25.351]that you have a family.
- [00:02:26.897]Undergraduate students have a strong connection with us,
- [00:02:29.191]and I think in a place that can often be big,
- [00:02:31.858]Communication Studies makes it feel like a home
- [00:02:34.738]and a family environment where
- [00:02:36.349]students can really connect with
- [00:02:37.234]the faculty and grad students.
- [00:02:39.208]I think a student should pursue the major in
- [00:02:41.117]Communication Studies because it's going to help
- [00:02:42.930]explain the world and make them a better person
- [00:02:45.490]in their personal, professional, and private lives.
- [00:02:48.328]Communication is the number one skill
- [00:02:50.460]that employers look for, we're the number two
- [00:02:52.636]major that they're looking for right now,
- [00:02:54.791]we're going to teach them to be critical thinkers,
- [00:02:56.722]better writers and public speakers, and learn
- [00:02:58.717]how to advocate, we're going to teach them
- [00:03:00.423]to negotiate conflicts, organizational life,
- [00:03:03.101]we're going to help them learn to relate to one another,
- [00:03:05.138]to build stronger, more meaningful relationships,
- [00:03:07.292]and all of that's going to result in
- [00:03:08.871]a better person and a more marketable person
- [00:03:11.228]who's going to really have both the skills
- [00:03:12.871]and the knowledge that employers seek.
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