Who Are Our Faculty?
Linda Young, Professor
Linda Young is currently serving as the Chair of OIT’s Communication Department. Her research interests include creative communication, Japanese media/anime/manga and media images generally, and communication theory. Her doctoral work focused on reading theories, the teaching of written composition, and ancient and modern rhetoric. Over the years, Dr. Young has given workshop presentations on teaching written composition, on institutional assessment, and faculty development. Her hobbies include traveling, singing, writing, and playing city building games like Caesar IV. Someday, she would like to design an XBOX game that involves an educational journey instead of people shooting each other.
Marilyn Dyrud, Professor
Marilyn Dyrud is eclectic in her research interests, which include electronic communication, engineering ethics, and the Holocaust. She is active in three professional organizations: the American Society for Engineering Education, Association for Business Communication, and the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. She has served as chair for the Pacific Northwest Section of ASEE, as well as the chair of ABC’s Teaching Committee, and has been recognized by both organizations for service. In 2008, she was recognized as Fellow of ASEE.
Over the years, Dr. Dyrud has given over 100 conference presentations on subjects ranging from business and technical communication to engineering ethics. She has published in a variety of engineering-related journals, as well as business communication journals and a number of assorted conference proceedings. She currently serves on the editorial boards for four journals.
Julianne Murray, Professor
Dr. Julianne Murray’s research interests focus on intercultural, interpersonal and group communication. Her passion for intercultural communication developed out of her overseas experiences, where she worked in Brazil, Germany and Japan and traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. Her doctoral research was an intercultural study of group dynamics, comparing group behavior in a Japanese and a U.S. college. Currently, her research focuses on interpersonal communication between faculty and students. She also has expertise in dispute resolution.
Matt Schnackenberg, Professor
Dr. Matt Schnackenberg's research interests focus on rhetorical theory and on the teaching of writing and speech. He most enjoys investigating together with his students the interaction of theory and application. In other words, they argue a lot in class. For his doctoral work, Dr. Schnackenberg researched what the ancient Greeks had to say about the cunning required to capture the fleeting opportunities for successful arguments. So much work, both in the university and out, requires the cunning to fight the right arguments and to fight them in the right ways.
Valerie Vance, Professor
Valerie Vance’s primary area of expertise is technical communication. She teaches both traditional and distance education courses, and has developed three web-based technical communication courses that serve students throughout the United States who are enrolled in Oregon Tech degree-completion programs. Her current research interests include visual communication literacy; and current issues in distance education, in particular plagiarism in the online environment and intellectual property. Valerie has written and published several papers that address her research interests.