Dane S. Claussen

Dane S. Claussen is Director of Research, Publications and Professional Advancement, National Communication Association, Washington, DC. He also has been Editor-in-Chief/Executive Director of Nonprofit Sector News, the only US news organization committed to covering all types of US nonprofit organizations for the general public, since April 2020.

During Fall Semester 2022, he was the Jonathan Murray Chair in Journalism and Media Communication on Semester at Sea, Institute for Shipboard Education. From August 2020 to May 2022, he was Lecturer of Strategic Communications, University of Idaho. From July 2015 to July 2018, he was the James Pedas Professor of Media, Communication and Public Relations; Executive Director, James Pedas Communication Center; and Chair, Department of Media, Communication and Public Relations, at Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania. He was Visiting Professor of International Journalism, School of Journalism & Communication, Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), Shanghai, China, from Sept. 2013 until June 2015 and again in June 2018. At SISU, he designed the English-language Ph.D. and M.A. programs in Global Communication (an interdisciplinary program focusing on advertising and public relations) and the English-language M.A. program in Chinese Media & Global Corporate Communications.

He was Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada from January 2011 to January 2013. Before that, Dr. Claussen was a journalism/mass communication professor at Point Park University (Pittsburgh, PA), from August 2001 to December 2010, during which time he directed the M.A. program from August 2001 until August 2010. (Many of his former students also completed a Ph.D.) While at Point Park University, he proposed, secured approvals for, and launched a dual M.A. (journalism/mass comm.)/MBA program, one of only six in the USA and the only one not at a research university. At Point Park, Dr. Claussen also twice chaired the university's Graduate Council (for a total of 5 1/2 years), including the critical period of graduate degree approvals and revisions in policies/procedures so that Point Park College could be rechartered as Point Park University by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was the university's first Faculty Development Coordinator with a comprehensive portfolio of responsibilities, and also chaired the university's new Program Review Committee for its first 16 months, including designing a program review process that complied with the requirements of Pennsylvania and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

From November 2017 to September 2021, he was Editor of Newspaper Research Journal (quarterly, refereed journal of the Newspaper and Online News Division, Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication). From March 2006 until September 2012, Dr. Claussen was Editor of the quarterly Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, an international, refereed, scholarly journal published by the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC), where he wrote 26 consecutive full-length essays and enlarged the International Editorial Advisory Board to become the most diverse (and one of the largest) editorial board of any English-language scholarly mass communication journal in the world, and solicited manuscripts and otherwise marketed the journal worldwide. (In AEJMC, Dr. Claussen also has been Head, Media Management & Economics Division; Head, Mass Communication & Society Division; Head, History Division; Head, Magazine Media Division; Head and co-founder, LGBTQ Interest Group; an elected member of AEJMC's Teaching Committee; an appointed member of AEJMC's Publications Committee; and an ex officio member of AEJMC's Diversity Task Force.)

Prior to joining Point Park University, Dr. Claussen was assistant professor of media, journalism and film, and also of gender studies, at Missouri State University (1999-2001). A Fulbright Specialist from 2009-2014, he also has been a nonresident Visiting Professor at IE University (Segovia & Madrid, Spain), and has been a guest lecturer in various courses and universities. In 2007, working with Dhaka University and Independent University Bangladesh (IUB), Dr. Claussen designed the first business journalism curriculum in Bangladesh, where he also has extensively consulted with an international NGO on public relations and media relations.

University courses he has taught extensively are: social science research methods; print/digital media management and media economics; media law and regulation; media ethics; sociology of journalism; history of US mass media; writing the nonfiction book; news writing; feature writing; and magazine writing. He also has taught: social media management and analytics, mass communication theory; public opinion & news media; media literacy; advertising management; advertising sales; history of US advertising (short course); history of US public relations (short course); mass media & society; newspaper editing; introduction to mass communication; introduction to advertising and public relations; media analysis & criticism; public affairs reporting; global history of communication; advanced human resources management; organizational communication; corporate finance; and writing a bachelor's (B.A.) thesis. Dr. Claussen designed the Science, Technology & Media capstone course at Missouri State University, and the Advertising and Public Relations Agency/Department Management course at Point Park University, in addition to designing or redesigning most of the courses that he has taught.

In addition to being author, co-author and/or editor of four books, he has published scores of articles in academic journals, professional magazines, professional and academic newsletters, plus encyclopedia articles, scholarly and popular book reviews, columns, academic and journalistic essays, letters to the editor, etc. He has presented dozens of papers at professional and academic conferences, as well as participating in dozens of academic panel discussions as a speaker, organizer/moderator or respondent/discussant. Dr. Claussen has served on editorial boards of 15 scholarly journals in both mass communication and sociology of religion, including Mass Communication & Society; Middle East Media Educator; Asia Pacific Media Educator; Australian Journalism Review; Communication Education; Journalism History; and Journal of Media & Religion; and has been a manuscript reviewer for many other scholarly journals plus academic book publishers.

Dr. Claussen served on the Media-Law Relations Committee of the State Bar of Wisconsin, and helped prepare the Wisconsin News Reporter's Legal Handbook, 3rd Ed. (1995). He also has been an expert witness or consultant on journalism-related or media industry litigation in Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Maryland.

Prior to completing his Ph.D. in 1999, Dr. Claussen was Publisher/ Editor/ President of the weekly Lakewood Press and biweekly University Place Press newspapers in Lakewood (suburban Tacoma), Wash. (1986-89); Publisher and co-founder of the monthly Pierce County (Wash.) Parent, 1988-89; Executive Editor of Van Dahl Publications, a unit of Capital Cities/ABC (1989-1990); Publisher/CEO/Editor of The Daily Reporter, Milwaukee (1991-92); Associate Publisher/ Advertising Director of the weekly Shepherd Express (alternative newsweekly) and monthly senior citizens' newspaper, The Mature American, Milwaukee (1992-94); Director of New Products & Special Projects, later National Advertising Director, PitchWeekly (alternative newsweekly), Kansas City (1994-95); Midwest Senior Mergers & Acquisitions Associate, W.B. Grimes & Co. (1992-95); and Editor of the Industrial Marketing Practitioner newsletter (1996-2003). In 1988, he launched American Newspaper Consultants, Ltd., which primarily operated in the mid-1990s as a national network of about 50 newspaper industry consultants. While at Shepherd Express and PitchWeekly, Dr. Claussen served as the elected first President of the Midwest Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN-Midwest). At Grimes, he was the first US newspaper broker to represent LGBTQ publications for sale and the first newspaper industry (or LGBTQ community) figure to propose (with a widely circulated written plan) a national group/chain of LGBTQ publications, both in 1993.

Dr. Claussen holds a B.S. in journalism (newspaper management & news-editorial writing) from the University of Oregon (1984); M.S. in mass communications from Kansas State University (1996), where he was Graduate Assistant in the Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media; an MBA in finance and human resources/industrial relations from the University of Chicago (1986); and a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Georgia (1999).

He is a lifelong philatelist, his honors including induction into the American Philatelic Society (APS) Writers Unit's Hall of Fame in 2012, and being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society, London (FRPSL) in 2005. Dr. Claussen has been president, APS Writers Unit; president, International Philatelic Press Club; president, Junior Philatelists of America (JPA); board member, American Philatelic Congress and American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors; Editor, The Heliograph journal, Postal History Foundation; an APS-accredited philatelic literature judge; and has served in various other offices in the APS Writers Unit and JPA, and on several APS committees. He has assembled the world's largest collection of newspaper industry-related postal history. One of Dr. Claussen's non-philatelic interests is having also assembled one of the USA's largest (if not the largest) collections of antique pocket watch fobs and chains.

Dr. Claussen has visited all 50 US states (48 of them more than once!), and about 45 countries for work and/or pleasure. Don't ask him to name his favorite(s).