Celebrating 30 Years of Service!

Dr. Christine Shea celebrates 30 years of service in the Communication Studies Department at Cal Poly. 

During her 30 years at Cal Poly, Dr. Christine Shea has received accolades for teaching excellence, published significant scholarship, and contributed thoughtfully and generously to department and university governance.  For six years, she served as the Associate Director of the Cal Poly Forensics program and coached the university’s highly successful and nationally recognized speech and debate team.  She has served on more than a dozen university, college, and department committees, including the University Human Subjects committee, and was instrumental in developing the Women’s & Gender Studies program and minor.  She has taught a variety of communication and gender studies courses, and students have been effusive in their praise of Dr. Shea’s knowledge, engagement, enthusiasm, and concern for her students.  Indeed, Dr. Shea has received a number of awards for her teaching, research, and service from various organizations and campus groups.

Dr. Shea has presented her research at dozens of international, national, and regional conferences, and her scholarly work has been published in various journals and books.  Perhaps Dr. Shea’s overall scholarly performance can best be described by a quotation from a letter she received from Dr. Larry Frey, Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado, when he sent her a copy of his new research methods textbook.  “We wanted you to have a copy because we respect the research that you have conducted in the communication field and cited some of it in the text.  We believe that students come to understand the theory and practice of communication research best when presented with real-life examples of high-quality communication scholarship.  Thank you for the work that you have done in the field.  Your contributions have certainly made our job of explaining communication research methods much easier.”