Teaching

LINKS TO SECTIONS:
Teaching Experience
Classes Taught/Syllabi
PDF of Teaching Principles

Rich Shumate’s Teaching Principles

  • Learning is a journey, not a destination – I look to the journey as well as the destination.
  • All students have potential – I inspire them to find theirs.
  • Confidence, courage, and curiosity are key to students’ performance – I strive to help them build all three.
  • Students need perspective – I let them see it.
  • Expectations build students’ confidence and skill – expecting perfection does not.
  • I must meet students at the level where they are – not at the level where I might want them to be.
  • I am a coach, I am a mentor – I am not a martinet.
  • An education is more gotten than given – I must focus not only on subject matter but also on building critical thinking.
  • We learn to live and live to learn – I must build lifelong learners.
  • These students have been entrusted in me – I must remember that is a sacred responsibility.
  • Once someone is my student, she or he is always my student – the relationship doesn’t end with the class.
  • The students are why I am here, and why I do this – or what is the point?

Teaching Experience

University of Central Arkansas School of Communication
Conway AR
Visiting Lecturer, August 2022 to August 2023
Assistant Professor, August 2023 to Present

  • Prepare students for dynamic careers as media professionals with student-centric coaching and mentoring.
  • Build student success by fostering critical thinking skills that encourage students to go above and beyond classroom instruction.
  • Engage with students using innovating pedagogy, focusing on professional media skills.
  • Teach journalism skills classes in reporting and newswriting, and online publishing, with emphasis on scaffolded learning to foster student growth.
  • Serve as faculty adviser for the UCA Scroll, the university’s yearbook, including advising on production and overseeing budget.
  • Ratings from students in class evaluations above averages for school, college, and university

Western Kentucky University School of Media
Bowling Green KY
Assistant Professor, 2017 to Present

  • Prepare students for dynamic careers as media professionals with student-centric coaching and mentoring.
  • Build student success by fostering critical thinking skills that encourage students to go above and beyond classroom instruction.
  • Engage with students using innovative pedagogy, focusing on professional media skills.
  • Manage classes with up to 140 students a semester, preparing class lectures and teaching materials and providing comprehensive, timely feedback on student work.
  • Empower students with effective guidance as an academic adviser to meet both university requirements and their personal goals.
  • Ratings from students in class evaluations consistently above averages for school, college, and university.
  • Building reputation as a thought-leader in news media political communication with innovative research projects using qualitative, historical, and quantitative approaches.
  • Research focuses on the perception among conservatives in the United States that the news media have a liberal bias; developed ground-breaking thesis that perception is triggered by conservatives’ need to maintain social identity, rather than media content.

University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications
Gainesville FL
Teaching Assistant/Instructor of Record, 2014-2018

  • Prepared undergraduate students for careers as journalists or public relations practitioners through effective, engaging classroom instruction and coaching.
  • Built student success by effectively leading engaging classes in newswriting, media studies, and political communication.
  • Demonstrated effective organizational skills by managing teaching schedule while also completing graduate school course work and dissertation research.
  • Ratings from students in class evaluations consistently above averages for school, college, and university.
  • Success recognized by being named as the top graduate student teacher in the UF College of Journalism and Communications for 2016-17.

Pulaski Technical College
North Little Rock AR
Adjunct Faculty, 2011-2014

  • Supported students in the developmental track in building writing ability needed for success at the community college level.
  • Mentored and coached students toward success who arrived with limited writing skills and often faced significant personal challenges.
  • Managed up to five classes and 100 students per semester, preparing class lectures and teaching materials and providing comprehensive feedback on student work.
  • Received consistently positive feedback from students in class evaluations.

Classes Taught

University of Central Arkansas

Beginning Reporting (JOUR 2300) – Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Spring 2023
Introductory reporting and newswriting class for School of Communication majors and minors.

Advanced Reporting (JOUR 3300) – Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
Advanced reporting and newswriting class for journalism majors and minors.

Online Publishing I (JOUR 3345) – Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Introductory upper-level course on techniques for online publication for journalism majors in the online sequence.

Online Publishing II (JOUR 3346) – Spring 2022, Spring 2023
Advanced upper-level course on techniques for online publication for journalism majors in the online sequence.

Podcasting (JOUR 4391) – Fall 2023
Elective course in which students learned the basics of podcast production.

Western Kentucky University

Understanding Media: Content, Ethics, and Technology (S0M 101) – Fall 2017, 18, 19, 20
Required large-lecture introductory media studies course primarily for freshman majors, with 80-120 students.

Syllabi: Fall 20   Fall 19

Newswriting (JOUR 202) – Spring 2018, Fall & Spring 2019, 20, 21
Lab-based introductory newswriting skills class required for sophomore-level majors and minors.

Syllabi:  Spring 21   Fall 20   Spring 20   Fall 19

Intermediate Reporting (JOUR 302) – Spring 2019, Fall & Spring 2020, 21
Intermediate newswriting and reporting skills class for journalism and photojournalism majors and minors.

Syllabi:  Spring 21   Fall 20  Spring 20

Advanced Reporting (JOUR 426) – Spring 2021
Advanced project-based reporting capstone class for journalism majors preparing for a professional career.

Syllabi: Spring 21

American News Media History (SOM 421) – Spring 2018, 19, 20
Survey of American news media history with research emphasis. Junior/senior-level elective class open to students across the university.

Syllabi: Spring 20

Fleischaker-Greene Scholars Program/First Amendment Reporting (SJB 402) – Fall 2018
Selective senior-level class, with outside financial sponsorship, that provides students with an opportunity to undertake an in-depth study of an issue relating to the First Amendment across an entire semester.

Media Content, Collaboration, and Community (SJB 102) – Fall 2017
Required lab-based introductory course that provides hands-on experience for students in photography, video and audio production, writing, and design; required for freshman majors in the School of Media.

University of Florida

Multimedia Writing (JOU 3109c), Fall 2014, 15 & Spring 2015, 16
Lab instructor for required junior-level introductory newswriting skills course for journalism and public relations majors.

Multimedia Writing (JOU 3109c), Fall 2015 & Spring 2016
Lecture assistant for multi-section introductory newswriting course with 200+ students. Helped with management of class and lectures.

Media and Politics (MMC 3614), Instructor of Record, Spring 2017 & Summer 2017
Instructor of record for survey class focusing on the news media’s role in the political process. Elective junior-senior level course for journalism majors.

Applied Fact Finding (JOU 3110), Instructor of Record, Summer 2015, 16
Instructor of record for course that taught undergraduate journalism majors how to find, access, and use public records and publicly available information as a reporter.

Pulaski Technical College

English Composition Fundamentals
Course teaching basic English composition to students in the developmental track.

College Seminar
Lecture course designed to introduce incoming students to the college experience.