Dr. Shirley Staples Carter

Shirley Staples Carter joined the University of South Carolina as Professor and Director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications in July 2003. Previously, Carter served as Professor and Director of the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University in Kansas. A seasoned journalism and mass communication educator and administrator, Carter has also served as chair of mass communication departments at Norfolk State University in Virginia, the University of North Florida, and assistant professor of journalism and director of the multicultural journalism program at Louisiana State University. Carter was named the 2006 Scripps Howard Foundation Journalism Administrator of the Year for her leadership in journalism and mass communication education.

Her teaching areas include Multicultural Communication, Ethics, Mass Communication and Society, and Public Relations and Media Management. Carter’s research areas include Freedom of Expression and Values Analysis in Advertising, Open Government, Women and Leadership, and Multicultural Issues in Journalism and Mass Communication. Carter is the author of several articles and presentations on diversity, journalism and mass communication education and leadership. She is co-editor of Mass Communication and the Information Age, Vision Press, and author of several textbook chapters on public relations writing, advertising copy and layout, religion and the media, and film. She has also received numerous grants to support technology and other research interests. Her works in progress include a History of Multicultural Images in Advertising, and Women and Leadership in Mass Communications.

Active in journalism and mass communication educational and professional organizations, Carter is a past president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications (ASJMC), a member of the International Communication Association (ICA), the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), and a former member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC). She received an AEJMC leadership award for her role in launching the Journalism Leadership Institute in Diversity (JLID, a fellowship program offered jointly with ASJMC designed to attract women and people of color to journalism and mass communication administration. She is a founding director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, and a member of the National Task Force on Media Diversity for the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Carter has served on numerous ACEJMC site visit teams and participated in external reviews of faculty and programs at major universities.

Carter has worked professionally as a managing editor of weekly newspapers in Alabama and Ohio, in university relations and institutional advancement in Alabama, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia, and public television in Alabama. She is a former staff writer at the Virginian (Norfolk) Pilot and fellow of the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Institute for Journalism Excellence. She received the B.S. in English Education from Tuskegee University, M.A. in Journalism from Ohio State University, and Ph.D. in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Follow Carter on Twitter @StaplesCarter.