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Dr. Robert Scott
Assistant Professor of Communication
E-mail Professor Scott

BS in education (speech and hearing therapy), Bowling Green State University
MA in communication, Regent University
PhD in mass communication, Bowling Green State University

Biography
Joining Southeastern’s faculty in 2007, Dr. Robert Scott relishes the opportunity to return to Christian higher education, bringing with him a wealth of academic experience and a strong desire for the success of his students.  Dr. Scott, himself, was not a great student until after a mandatory three-year stint in the Army during Vietnam.  Coming back to college on the GI Bill, he was highly motivated to succeed in school, even taking the initiative to attack the academic areas in which he knew he was weak.  He started teaching as a teaching assistant at Bowling Green State University while working on his PhD, but his first full-time job found him in Christian education at Asbury College in Kentucky, where he also served as the media manager of the school’s radio station.  After three years at Asbury, Dr. Scott had to step out of education altogether to finish his dissertation, but six years later, he was able to take a job at Northwestern College (Orange City, Iowa).  From there, he went to Frostburg State University in Maryland on a tenure track, but after those six years in secular academia, he was ready to come back to a workplace where he could engage the eternal and the moral in his work. 

Dr. Scott is a consummate teacher, garnering the highest teacher evaluation ratings all six years at Frostburg.  He sees every student as a potential leader, and though he is committed to keeping his academic standards high, he has always been particularly concerned not only to teach the “good” students well but also to help the bottom portion of his classes succeed.  To do this, he continually adjusts his instruction methods and, most important of all, creates a sense of safety in the classroom.  He abides by the proverb that “students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Dr. Scott is responsible for the FIRE TV network, and he is in charge of Southeastern’s media certification system, which aspires to train students so well in various aspects of the TV production process, both theoretically and hands-on, that the students can enter the competition for industry jobs with an edge over other universities' graduates.  As part of this responsibility, Dr. Scott is developing relationships with key people in the TV industry, both to ensure the validity of Southeastern’s certification system and to build a network for Southeastern communication graduates.  Dr. Scott also believes that the further integration of production theory and production practicums will enhance Southeastern graduates' marketability. He would like to see technically competent Christians embedded in the media industries because these jobs affect what happens in advertising, marketing, TV programming, and politics. 

Dr. Scott teaches Communication Theory, Communication Law, Introduction to TV & Film Production, and Advanced TV Production.  His research interests include media theory, media aesthetics/literacy, media criticism, and privacy in mass media, which was the focus of his dissertation.