Photo Credit: Carolyn Haslinger
Innovation and imagination is what this weeks Campus Celebrity, Avery Holton, believes in. Avery came to the University of Utah in 2013. He works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication with research mainly on digital and social media, journalism, and disabilities communication.
Avery began his studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his Masters in Journalism. While in Texas, he worked as a freelance journalist with the Houston Chronicle, and Time Magazine. In 2006, he started working as the Director of Communications for the Round Rock Express baseball team, the Triple-A affiliate for the MLB team, the Texas Rangers. He worked there for four seasons.
In 2007, Avery had a cancer scare that inspired him to go back to school. He went back to the University of Texas at Austin. In his final year there, Avery was a William Powers, Jr. Fellow, which is awarded to only eight students who are considered the most academically competitive scholars at UT. It is a huge honor! In 2013, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism and a Doctoral Certification for Disabilities Studies.
Avery chose the University of Utah because of four reasons: the Huntsman Center and being able to get involved there, the opportunity to innovate, Kent Ono, the Chair in the Department of Communications, and the quality of the faculty. Another reason he chose Utah is because of his wife Julianna, who in 2011 received her Master’s of Social Work from UT. Julianna had a dream that they were living in Utah before Avery ever received an offer from the U. That was a sign for them that if the offer comes, which it did, they were moving to Utah!
Here at the U, Avery has become a very favored Professor among students. Students have raved about him saying, “Avery is an amazing professor! You can honestly tell he loves what he is doing. He is always willing to help you out when you ask. Great class!” and “Avery is the kind of professor who inspires you to do more. He gives us the tools we need and let’s us create with them. Just a very nice guy who really cares about us.” Avery is really making his mark here on campus through students, and also in his work.
He is currently working with UT on the 1st Dual Taught course called Social News Network (SNN). For this course students run the social media accounts for 16 weeks. There are about 145 students involved with 85 students at UT, and 60 students here at the U. He is also working on making classes more innovative. He has a class waiting for approval that has to do with drones, or quad copters, and in a class he is currently teaching, they are working on creating a website called The Hive UT. This website is used as a place where students can have their “A” work published and appreciated. On this website other publications can choose articles to publish on their websites. These publications could be regional or even national!
As we can see Avery Holton is everything we look for in a Campus Celebrity. He has achieved such great honors academically, he believes in his work, research and also his students. We at Her Campus Utah cannot wait to see what else Avery has planned for the U and the students here!