Teresa Durham, Staff Writer
Dr. Lisa Dusenberry is an assistant professor of English and Professional Communications, specializing in children’s and teenagers’ literature, media and games.
Being so involved with media and games, you can guess that Dr. Dusenberry adores her job and is able to take what she loves to do in her spare time and bring insights to her students.
“I love that working at Armstrong allows me to pursue my interests in digital media, professional communication and children’s/young adult literature at the same time. It also allows me to bring in the information I love to research into the classroom to share it with students.”
She changed her major several times, most notably when she went from wanting to program video games to teaching students to understand the impact of design and communication through different media.
Dr. Dusenberry received her Ph.D. in professional communications from University of Florida and her bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University.
New to the area, one of her favorite parts of living in Savannah is the 80 degree beach weather on Christmas break. Another side benefit is that everyone she knows wants to come visit the city.
“I moved from Atlanta to Savannah, so I appreciate the beauty of the area and how accessible events, shopping and attractions are here.”
While she likes the local Savannah perks, she can also entertain herself anywhere she can bring her books. Her favorite novel genre is urban fantasy. Although, her novels and school papers get a run for their money because her favorite video game is the new “Rise of the Tomb Raider.”
She loves to see her students excel and understand that the work world of a professional communications major is larger than they think. This is why one of her favorite classes to teach is her 5700 Promotional Writing course, because she gets to see her students’ progress on a project over the semester.
In the course, she teaches strategic social, not commercial, marketing skills that promote group problem-solving and quality public communication.
Making the situation accessible and applicable, the course will allow the student groups to focus on local social problems of their choice. Using different forms of social marketing, the students would be able to solve their problems and build their knowledge of public relation writing techniques simultaneously.
