David Campbell: Story of a Career tells the story of an educator who taught communication during some of the most pivotal and innovative years of this discipline’s history: years of ingenuity and flourishing technological progress.

When David Campbell began his teaching career in 1964, academia was just beginning to regard the discipline of speech as a separate discipline from English and theatre. At the time, innovations in technology and visual media were integrating into education, business, and leisure, thus prompting a major rethinking in terms of what a degree in “speech” should constitute. Over the next thirty-five years, the disciplinary focus began to shift from performance to analysis, critique, and the use of electronic media such as television, motion picture, and eventually, the computer. During this span of time, Campbell had to keep up with all of these changes, and in doing so, paved a diverse, progressive career path that is exemplar of how the teaching of communication has evolved while the discipline grew.

In addition to providing historical insight into the growth of communication as an academic subject, the book recounts the remarkable journey of an educator, providing examples of his service, creative scholarly activity, and a productive career in higher education. Through archived correspondence, photography, teaching materials, and interviews with colleagues, students, family, and friends of Campbell, this book pays tribute to an educator whose career began with teaching speech and acting and ended with web page design and digital video editing. (266pp. color illus. Masthof Press, 2018.)