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Tim has 13 years of involvement in academic debate. He is an experienced debate coach and has coached at both the high school and collegiate level (Brookfield Central High School, Brookfield WI; Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC; University of Pittsburgh). Tim taught public speaking several semesters and has been actively involved in public speaking for more than 14 years.
Dawn just received her MA in Rhetoric and Media Studies at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Communication, with special areas of interest in the study of gender, sexuality, television and television history. This is her fourth semester of teaching public speaking. Dawn received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Journalism and has worked as an organizer and writer for alternative and activist newspapers.
About Matt. . .
Matthew has been at The University of Pittsburgh since 1991. After he completed his undergraduate work, he was accepted in the MA program in the Department of Communication and Rhetoric. Matthew began teaching for the first time as part of his Assistantship in the department and taught 4 sections of "Public Speaking" in the '95/'96 academic year. Besides public speaking, Matt has assisted with two of the three survey courses offered by the department. The first course focused on public debates, social movements, the media and "rhetoric", while the second focused on the psycho-socio-linguistic aspects of "communication" studies including interpersonal, small-group, organizational, and non-verbal communication. Matthew received his MA in the Spring of 1997.
A native of Pittsburgh, Jamie is a professional with 11 years administrative experience in higher education that includes coordination of projects, special events, training and professional development, and financial resource managment. She has served in several capacities: assistant to vice president for business affairs, assistant director of campus operations and director of retail services, and currently serves as the director of special projects in enrollment administration . Jamie is an alumna of several University of Pittsburgh programs and holds her B.A. in Social Sciences from the College of General Studies, a Certificate in Communication through the Department of Communication-CGS program, an M.P.I.A in International Affairs from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
As you can see from the biographies above, each of the authors of this page have a great deal of experience both with teaching public speaking, as well as studying the essential elements that go in to effective public speaking. We also have a great deal of mentoring support from one of the top research and teaching departments of Communication and Rhetoric in the country.
Although we hope you find this online resourse invaluable to your future communcation efforts, we do have just one prefacing thought that we would like you to consider. Although the authors of this web site believe strongly that the material offered within is essential to effective public speaking, we also hold the view that public speaking is an art. What exactly is the distinction we are trying to make and what is its relevance to you as a potential speaker? Well, the distinction we are trying to make is between an art and a "techne."
The genealogy of the word techne is from Greek and it is the root word of more familiar words like technique and technical. It refers to the "nuts and bolts" of a particular human endeavor as opposed to the endeavor's aesthetic qualities or elements. Most o