The College of Communication and Information (CCI) at the University of Tennessee will instate Dr. Joe Mazer as its new dean in July.

Mazer will replace Dean Michael Wirth as he ushers in the fall semester. Mazer started in communication in high school as he helped operate his school’s functioning television station. He later received his bachelor’s degree at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, his master’s degree at Illinois State University and his doctoral degree at Ohio University.

He has led as chair of the communication department at Clemson University since 2018, and was associate chair from 2011-2018.

UTK provost Dr. John Zomchick detailed what Mazer’s role as dean will cover.

“Dr. Mazer brings a steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion,” Zomchick said. “As dean, Dr. Mazer will lead a community of strategic creative thinkers who are passionate about leading, thinking and preparing students to understand the role of information and communication in democratic societies. He will oversee the college’s four schools — advertising and public relations, communication studies, information sciences and journalism and electronic media.”

Mazer will use his experiences as department chair at Clemson to lead as dean.

“My job will be to work with all those directors across those schools to move the college together forward,” Mazer said. “So I’m moving from, in a way, being in the weeds of a department or a school to being a dean, having a 30,000-foot view of the college and working to ensure that all of the units are working together (for the students) …”

During his time at Clemson, he described his department as having “exponential growth” under his leadership. By the time he left, the department doubled its faculty members, significantly increased its staff members and introduced more undergraduate and graduate programs. He wants to bring that level of growth to UTK and CCI as dean.

Mazer commented on his decision to leave Clemson for UTK, offering his own philosophy on the matter.

“I’m coming to make a difference,” Mazer said. “I want to come because I see this as an extraordinary opportunity, not just for me, but for the entire college to accelerate its role as a college of communication at a flagship, land grant, Research I institution. I will never leave a position or a place unless I know that I’ve accomplished all I can to move that unit forward.”

He mentioned that looking back at the plans he and the department at Clemson made a few years ago to keep moving forward and growing, they had accomplished nearly every goal that they made, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with that, he cited two factors that influenced his decision to accept the dean position. The first is the nature of the college. UTK is a flagship university, meaning that it’s the most well-known and biggest university in the state. UTK is also a land grant university, meaning that it serves the state and its people. Finally, UTK is a Research I university, meaning that it offers the highest levels of research. 

Mazer said that UTK is one of two universities in the country with all three of these designations that also brings all areas of communication and information sciences under one college, so the opportunity to work at one drew him to the position.

The other factor appeared during his time at Clemson. In 2012, he acted as director of the Social Media Listening Center at Clemson, which was the first of its kind in higher education. After the center’s opening, staff members from CCI visited the center to learn about it and gain advice on starting their own, which later opened as the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center at UTK. This put UTK on Mazer’s radar early on as he began researching the university. When he was formally offered the dean position, he was already familiar with the university.

Looking towards the future, Mazer has some plans for when he becomes dean as he hopes to lead the college forward. He wants to begin by laying out a plan for the college to follow alongside the university’s vision.

“My biggest hope for the college is that when we look back five, 10 years from now, that we’re able to say, ‘We have taken significant steps forward as a college on the campus of the University of Tennessee that embraces the volunteer spirit of service and leadership,’ and really thinking about what that means,” Mazer said. “So we have some work to do in the next couple of years to think about that, to begin to put initiatives in place and to support and resource those initiatives.”

Mazer is looking forward to arriving on campus and to start engaging with students this fall. He said that he plans on being on campus as much as possible, walking around and talking with students to get to know them further and how he can help them as dean. He wants students to know that he will do all that he can to ensure that students are getting the resources and education they need to prepare them for life after graduation.

“I’m already in conversations with staff in the college to plan out several events in the fall and the spring semester,” Mazer said. “When I’m there, there will be student engagement events, where students will have the opportunity to get together with students and talk with them.”

He also talked about holding receptions and cookouts to meet and talk with students. He wants to use these events to learn from students on how to improve the college. He will also try to connect through football, as he wanted students to know that he and his family are big college football fans.

Overall, Dr. Joe Mazer looks forward to becoming dean of the College of Communication and Information at UTK this fall.

“It’s been less than a month since I accepted the position, and certainly less than a month since the university made the announcement,” Mazer said. “So it’s just been an exciting three weeks almost …, and we’re just so excited to get there and get started.”

This article has been edited to add additional information.