Margaret Quinlan, associate professor of communication studies, received the Bonnie Cone Early-Career Professorship during the University Convocation, Thursday, Aug. 20.
A three-year appointment, the Cone Early-Career Professorship for Teaching recognizes a recently tenured professor who embodies Bonnie Cone’s tenacious commitment to providing UNC Charlotte undergraduate and graduate students with enriching, high-quality educational experiences. The recipient is nominated by a dean or department chair and selected by a faculty committee of award-winning teachers.
Provost Joan Lorden, in announcing the appointment, noted Quinlan's “sustained excellence in teaching is about employing communication knowledge and skills effectively so that she and her students become co-constructors of shared meaning. Maggie’s teaching philosophy and practices are informed by the theoretical concepts that also influence her research agenda. In her research, Maggie creates opportunities where scholars can hear and acknowledge voices of individuals often marginalized or silenced and be responsive to salient concerns of community members. This same philosophy guides her teaching — she wants her classroom to be a place where diverse voices can be heard, and students can connect the coursework to their lives as citizens.
Quinlan completed a bachelor’s degree from Marist College, a master’s degree from Illinois State University and a Ph.D. from Ohio University. Her research areas of interest include health, organizational and performative communication; ethnography, narrative/interpretive/rhetorical/feminist analyses; and social justice issues that affect marginalized populations including disability rights and gender inequities.
In 2014, Quinlan and collaborators won a regional Emmy Award for the documentary series “The Courage of Creativity,” which explored the role that artists and creativity can play in people’s well-being in health-related contexts.
According to Shawn Long, interim associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and former chair of communication studies, Quinlan “is one of those special professors who has it all—great personality, strong work ethic, and love of teaching, She is a scholarly giant, and an outstanding colleague.”
View images from this year’s University Convocation on the UNC Charlotte Flickr feed.