Felicia McGhee became the head of the Department of Communication at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in July, but she's hardly new to the downtown campus.
Since 1999, when she first began splitting her time between television news reporting and teaching classes full time at UTC, McGhee has worked her way through multiple roles - and multiple degrees - to the job leading the department.
"I still worked at WTVC on Fridays and summer and winter breaks when I moved over here," McGhee says. "I just missed the excitement of news, and I didn't teach on Fridays."
The UTC gig was supposed to be temporary. The plan was for McGhee to pursue a master's degree at no cost while she filled in for a professor who was studying in Florida, then return to her media career. But the professor she was filling in for opted not to return, and UTC offered to send McGhee to Knoxville to pursue her doctorate at the University of Tennessee.
"In 2005, I had to leave because the doctoral degree was full time," McGhee says. "For 3 years, my job was to get the degree, and the university supported me in doing that."
She'd also had a son, Thomas, in 2002, so the schedule was grueling, McGhee adds. The commute was nearly 2 hours each way, and she organized her schedule so she could drop Thomas off at day care and his father could pick him up.
"Thomas has no memory of this," McGhee says. "He remembers going to graduation. When they said my name, I could hear him say 'Yay, Mommy!'"
McGhee was named interim department head 2 years ago, and she recently led the department through the grueling accreditation process that hits every 6 years. Now she's turning her sights to the process of switching the bachelor of arts degree to a bachelor of science, and shifting the mix of classes to reflect the demands of modern media jobs.
"We have 451 majors - the most we've ever had - and what I love about it is it's both theoretical and practical," McGhee says. "In the real world, no one is going to ask me for my grades. They want to know, can I shoot, can I interview, can I write and can I edit."
Felicia McGhee
Role: Department Head and Associate Professor for the Department of Communication at the University of Tennessee at ChattanoogaPersonal: McGhee is from Pontiac, Michigan. She has a son, Thomas, 17.
Media Writing 2 is her favorite class to teach because that's where students really begin to understand the business, she says.
"That's the class where they're first exposed to broadcast journalism, and not only do they learn to write their scripts, they learn how to put stories together using the radio and video software," she says. "At first they're so timid, but once they get into it, they like it."
The department faculty brings years of professional experience to their work preparing students for communication careers, and students do real-world storytelling as part of their curriculum, McGhee says.
"Our crown jewel is called Rising Rock," she says. "In that class they produce stories that feature the community - they leave these four walls and their stories are amazing."