Point Park University Professor Earns Teaching Excellence Award Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Tatyana Dumova with Dr. Janie Harden Fritz, Duquesne University, PCA interim executive director
"The higher education ecosystem is undergoing transformation caused by or accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This resulted in many shifts including rethinking what we teach and how we teach, reviewing and revising course content, updating pedagogical models and improving assessment. Helping students learn has become most important for me."
School of Communication Professor Tatyana Dumova, Ph.D., received the Harvey Kelly Excellence in Teaching Award at the 2022 Pennsylvania Communication Association (PCA) Convention, held this fall at East Stroudsburg University.
The annual award is given to communication faculty who demonstrate a passion for and a mastery of teaching, both in and out of the classroom. Dumova was selected in recognition of her innovation and excellence in teaching.
The award citation acknowledged Dumova for designing and establishing a graduate curriculum cluster of excellence, a strategic grouping of graduate courses with an external marker of excellence — conference presentations by students reviewed by faculty from other colleges and universities. In five years this curriculum innovation resulted in 35 graduate student research presentations at the state and regional level and was featured in the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration, 2016, Vol. 35, No. 2.
In 2016, Professor Dumova spearheaded the B.A. in Multimedia program review, energized the faculty, and Multimedia became the largest School of Communication undergraduate program for the next five years.
"The COVID pandemic became a challenge of enormous proportions for all American educators. It brought the best out of them as it required not only to work hard but also to innovate, motivate and carry the torch of hope for our youth through these two bleak years," said Dumova.
"Coming out of the pandemic, I was nominated by Point Park students for the 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award, and PCA colleagues honored me with the Harvey Kelly Award for Excellence in Teaching. For me, it emphasizes one more time that Point Park University has outstanding human capital."
According to Dumova, "the higher education ecosystem is undergoing transformation caused by or accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This resulted in many shifts including rethinking what we teach and how we teach, reviewing and revising course content, updating pedagogical models and improving assessment. Helping students learn has become most important for me."
Professor Dumova came to Point Park in 2009 as one of 56 high-achieving faculty hired across Pennsylvania under the Keystone Innovation Starter Kit (KISK) initiative of Governor Edward G. Rendell to facilitate adoption of technology in the Commonwealth using institutions of higher education as catalysts of change.
After joining the Point Park faculty as associate professor of digital media, Dumova established a research professorship in the School of Communication with a robust program of scholarly research in communication technology, resulting in conference papers and scholarly books, founded a scholarly journal, developed an innovative M.A. in Communication Technology program (now the M.A. in Multimedia), and launched a program of faculty-led student research. Currently, Dumova teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in media and communication.
Since 1939, PCA brings together communication educators and professionals, promoting teaching, research, service and development in all areas of human communication.