Shawn Parry-Giles Awarded 2014-2015 Outstanding Director Of Graduate Studies

ARHU faculty member receives the prestigious Outstanding Director of Graduate Studies Award.

An ARHU faculty member received the 2014-2015 Outstanding Director of Graduate Studies Award.

Congratulations to Shawn Parry-Giles, ARHU’s Outstanding Director of Graduate Studies Award recipient!

The Outstanding Director of Graduate Studies Award is intended to recognize a Director of Graduate Studies who has made an exceptional contribution to graduate education, a graduate program and/or the graduate student experience in that program. The recipient will receive a $500 award.

ARHU Recipient:

Shawn Parry-Giles, Communication

Shawn J. Parry-Giles is a Professor in the Department of Communication and the Director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership at the University of Maryland. Her research centers on the study of rhetoric and politics, with a focus on the study of the presidency.

Parry-Giles studies public discourse by and about the president and the first lady, finding such public messages interesting because they offer insight into the ideologies and conflicts of the period in which they served. Some research is more historically grounded and involves the use of archival research from presidential libraries, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Library of Congress. Such archival work provides insight into the public messages that presidents and first ladies issue. Other research projects are more focused on messages about the presidents and first ladies and are more theoretically and ideologically focused. Parry-Giles studies the news coverage, documentaries, and television dramas about the presidents and the presidency. Currently, she is working on two collaborative projects: one is on the reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by those who knew him. Another is a corpus analysis of Hillary Clinton's speeches from 1992-2013.