Lauren Wilks ’13, Ph.D., always enjoyed school, 但她在赌博平台网站大全(Trinity University)的最后一年，她的沟通能力达到了顶峰，这段经历对她形成了很大的影响，让她走上了获得博士学位的道路，并于2023年秋季回到母校担任教授.
“My capstone was a big deal for me. It was my first self-directed sustained study, 我深入研究了一大堆女权主义分析，以便弄清楚我想怎么做我的研究. It gave me a way of thinking about gender and women’s studies scholarship, which I hadn’t necessarily had much exposure to yet,” Wilks says.
Wilks refined her capstone project, “Is Grey’s Anatomy on the Wave? A Feminist Textual Analysis of Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang," 并在2014年新闻与大众传播教育者协会的年会上展示了它, 获得“娱乐研究兴趣小组”类别最佳奖项. 这是德堡大学第39届年度本科生荣誉会议接受的30个项目之一.
Outside of class, Wilks was involved in Alpha Phi Omega, Alpha Chi Lambda, KRTU, TigerTV, and wrote for the Campus Pulse section of the Trinitonian, 威尔克斯认为是什么让她开始了自己的教育事业，尽管她当时并没有完全意识到这一点.
“赌博娱乐平台网址大全让我有机会与来自赌博娱乐平台网址大全社区的人交谈，否则我可能不会与他们接触. 与教师的访谈让我对教授的工作有了更立体的了解, and I got to have open, 与不同专业的教授坦诚交谈，了解他们对什么感兴趣,” Wilks says. “I still have fond memories of some of the interviews I did, like with Dr. Richard Reed and his beekeeping.”
After graduating from Trinity, Wilks worked in public relations, 给了她一套不同的技能，以补充她在特里尼托尼亚学到的技能.
“公共关系就是代表我的客户进行沟通，让他们的信息对记者和他们的目标受众有吸引力,” Wilks says. “你需要公共关系能够有效地代表人们进行宣传.”
Through her experiences in public relations, Wilks became interested in deeper questions around how content disseminates, who manages the spread of information, and how and why different types of content eventually become popular, 她注意到自己已经开始怀念在赌博娱乐平台网址大全大四时的那种批判性思维了.
“I remember coming back to Trinity for Alumni Weekend and speaking with Dr. Christ and Dr. Delwiche, and they encouraged me to consider graduate school. Dr. Henderson was my communication adviser and a true mentor during my undergraduate studies, and we had also been talking about the opportunities that were available to me. 我认为所有这些谈话都给了我申请工作所需的动力，”威尔克斯说.
威尔克斯在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的穆迪传播学院获得硕士学位. She enjoyed researching her thesis, 《赌博娱乐平台网址大全》,” so much that she knew she wanted to continue on with her studies. 她被威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校录取，并计划在五年内完成她的媒体与文化研究博士课程, but an opening in Trinity’s Department of Communication accelerated her timeline.
“Two different friends of mine from academia told me about the job posting, 我简直不敢相信，在一个我拥有如此美好回忆的院系里，居然有这样的机会,” Wilks says. “I applied to a few places, 但赌博娱乐平台网址大全是赢家，因为我们的教授非常关心他们的学生，并把学生之间的关系放在首位.”
Lauren Wilks在2023年校友周末期间与其他与会者在嘉年华上的13次访问.
Now that she has a full semester under her belt, Wilks truly believes that Trinity students are special.
“赌博娱乐平台网址大全的学生对他们所做的工作有着令人兴奋的精力和认真的投入,” Wilks says. “It’s really gratifying as a professor to have students who care so deeply, are willing to put in the effort, and have the initiative to take the ball and run with it on their projects.”
Wilks, who has authored articles such as 《赌博平台网站大全》,” 媒体是否正在正式开设一门关于种族、性别和性取向的课程.
“I love to talk about the intersections of identity and media,” Wilks says. “我认为媒体在很大程度上告诉了我们如何理解自己和彼此, 所以我很高兴看到学生们批判性地思考媒体行业的代表性和包容性是如何演变的.”
In collaboration with Rebecca Densley, Ph.D., and Sarah Erickson, Ph.D., 威尔克斯也在研究媒体对种族和民族的表现方面的父母调解, 调查父母允许孩子接触哪些媒体，基于这些媒体将如何影响他们对种族或民族身份的看法.
Wilks, a San Antonio native, 从一所小型高中毕业后，去了一所规模更大的州外大学, 但她错过了在一个较小的学校环境中可能与教授建立的密切关系. 她在大二的时候转到了赌博娱乐平台网址大全，主修英语，她很感激赌博娱乐平台网址大全的教授们给她的鼓励和启发.
“Dr. Patrick Keating’s ‘Media Texts’ course is what made me add communication as my second major. 他向我展示了如何将我在英语课上磨练出来的批判性视角运用到流行文化和媒体上,” Wilks says. “Dr. Carey Latimore was also super impactful. 我在赌博娱乐平台网址大全快毕业的时候选修了他的一门非裔美国人历史课, and I would have minored in that if I had gotten to it sooner. His class influenced some of my grad work.”
威尔克斯很自豪能作为传播系的代表不仅是作为校友，而且现在是它的一名教员.
“It’s cool to look behind the curtain as a professor and not be disillusioned by what I see; instead, I’m excited by what I’m finding,” Wilks says. “我可以成为某些传统的一部分，比如校友周末，我作为一名新校友与之联系，同时也能够代表系里，与我们的学生进行有意义的互动.”
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