Hubbard School Announces Promotion for Five Faculty Members

Promotions take effect July 1, 2022

Following the recommendation of the faculty in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the College of Liberal Arts, its Dean and the Provost, the University of Minnesota Regents voted to promote four Hubbard School faculty members to the position of associate professor with tenure, and one tenured associate professor to the position of tenured full professor. The vote was ratified on May 12, 2022, and the promotions take effect July 1, 2022, for associate professors Colin Agur, Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, Adam Saffer and Claire Segijn, and full professor Matt Carlson. 

“We’re proud to announce these promotions to these valued faculty members,” said Hubbard School Director Elisia Cohen. “They deserve this award for their academic and professional accomplishments as they promote excellence within all the School’s programs.”

Bélair-Gagnon, a McKnight Presidential Fellow, spoke at the Regents meeting on May 12. "I can say that in my work here through my tenure track position, the University has been a fantastic place to always continue to innovate and produce engaged work with the local Minnesota and global journalism community. I am very grateful that the kind of research that I do, made possible through the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the College of Liberal Arts and the U of M community, connects to the broader university goals to promote good health and well being, equity, diversity and strong institutions."

Matt Carlson

Matt Carlson, Professor
Matt Carlson is the author or editor of six books and has published over sixty journal articles and book chapters. His research within the field of journalism studies concentrates primarily on how different actors publicly compete to define journalism and its boundaries, dictate its normative and ethical commitments, and establish proper forms of news. He has served in leadership roles at the International Communication Association, and he is currently on the editorial board of eight journals. He also serves as Director of Graduate Studies at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

 

Colin Agur

Colin Agur, Associate Professor
Colin Agur’s research explores emerging media, with interests in mobile communication, digital games, and the political economy of media. In addition to his book, Education and Social Media: Toward a Digital Future (2016, MIT Press), his work has appeared in leading journals such as New Media & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Social Media + Society, Mobile Media & Communication, and Journalism. At the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, he served as Faculty Fellow and member of the Advisory Board. At the International Communication Association, he has served as Division Chair (Mobile Communication), member of the Board of Directors, and Chair of a Presidential Task Force. He also sits on the editorial board of New Media and Society. Since arriving at the University of Minnesota in 2016, he has taught JOUR 1501 (Digital Games and Society), JOUR 3551 (The Business of Digital Media), and JOUR 3553 (Mobile Communication), teaching more than 2000 students during this period.

Valerie Belair-Gagnon

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, Associate Professor
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon’s affiliations include: the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota and Yale Law School Information Society Project. She was Executive Director and Research Scholar as well as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, a fellow at Oslo Metropolitan University Digital Journalism Research Group, and Fellow at Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. She uses qualitative methods and use hybrid methodologies and theories at the intersection of the sociology of work/organizations and journalism studies. She is the author of The Paradox of Connection (Illinois University Press, 2022, with Diana Bossio, Logan Molyneux and Avery Holton), Journalism Research that Matters (Oxford University Press, 2021, with Nikki Usher), and Social Media at BBC News (Routledge, 2015).

Adam Saffer

Adam Saffer, Associate Professor
Adam Saffer teaches Strategic Communication at the Hubbard School after beginning his career on the faculty of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill's Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Saffer's research revolves around a core interest in understanding the ways individuals, groups, and organizations use and are influenced by communication networks. His recent work is particularly focused on revealing how the social ties individuals activate in response to health messages and political events have hidden influences on the reception of messages or perception of events. Saffer has published in journals like New Media & Society, Journal of Communication, Communication Monographs, and Communication Research.

 

Claire Segijn 2019

Claire M. Segijn, Associate Professor
Claire Segijn’s work focuses on the intended and unintended effects of using multiple media simultaneously (multiscreening and synced advertising). She studies how media multitasking affects information processing and advertising effectiveness, as well as privacy concerns and ethical ramifications of synced advertising and other forms of corporate surveillance. She is a Mithun Program Fellow in Advertising and her work has been honored with numerous awards and grants of the American Academy of Advertising (AAA), the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the European Advertising Academy (EAA), and the International Communication Association (ICA). In 2020, she was granted the prestigious Mary Alice Shaver Promising Professor award of the American Academy of Advertising and that same year she was named an emerging scholar for AEJMC. Her work has appeared in top-tier advertising and communication journals (e.g., Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Communication Methods & Measures).