Dr. Caroline Sawyer Wins Freshley Outstanding New Teacher Award
Cast and crew of “By the River.”Congratulations are in order to USCB’s Dr. Caroline Sawyer, winner of the 2020 Dwight L. Freshley Outstanding New Teacher Award. Each year, the Southern States Communication Association awards this honor to an outstanding member who has demonstrated teaching excellence early in their career. The association covers Florida, Georgia South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Dr. Sawyer is assistant professor of Communication Studies in the Department of Social Sciences. She was chosen for the Freshley award based on the experiential learning she facilitates for her students, who work on the production crew of TV series “By the River” and participate in community-based service learning projects.
USCB partners with SCETV to produce “By the River,” an interview style program that features South Carolina authors and is broadcast statewide. Sawyer’s students also produce videos for local non-profits including Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, Volunteers in Medicine of Hilton Head Island, the Pat Conroy Literary Festival and the Penn Center.
When local churches needed to switch to online services due to COVID-19, Sawyer and her students offered their expertise in audio-video production.
“This pandemic has created an opportunity for us to put more students in internships doing video work then we ever have,” she said.
Dr. Caroline Sawyer came to USCB in 2016. Courses she teaches include Public Speaking, Single Camera Production, Media and Society, Theories of Communication and others. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Memphis, her Master of Arts from Austin Peay State University, and her Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University. Dr. Sawyer's research interests include transmedia storytelling, corporate communication, broadcast media, gender and sports communication, sports and new media, popular culture, American culture and critical discourse studies. She has also worked as a corporate communications consultant.