Quinnipiac’s new Dean of the School of Communications, Dr. David Donnelly, hopes to help shape the school of communications to prepare students for the future.

Donnelly, originally the Associate Dean of the School of Communications, was promoted to Dean of Communications after a nationwide search.

He came to Quinnipiac University as a professor of communications from University of Houston to pursue an administrative job.

“I liked the University itself. I was in the right place at the right time,” Donnelly said. “The school has a growing reputation with a phenomenal faculty.”

Right now Donnelly is juggling both the Associate Dean and Dean positions and is swamped with administrative work, but he has big plans for the future.

Donnelly is considering establishing a student advisory council, which would help build strengths and address weaknesses within the school.

He hopes that in the future basic communications classes will be incorporated into core curriculum.

Ideally, students would learn the skills necessary to be able to interact in the communications field not only today but in the future as well.

The support of the experienced faculty is behind Donnelly.

“I want students to know how privileged they are to interact with these people. They are fortunate to have a faculty with such great experience. They’re published, nationally recognized and many of them are still active in the field. They have accomplished a great deal.”

Donnelly believes that his knowledgeable faculty can do a great deal for Quinnipiac students, but in the end success is up to the students. “We can train them, prepare them, make connections, but they need to take the initiative.”

“This school has been very successful in great jobs but we can only go so far. Ultimately, they need to work hard,” Donnelly said.

Currently, there are students from the School of Communications working with the US Senate, the Olympics and ESPN. Donnelly believes that building these relationships will help the school grow.

“As they see fantastic success stories they should know that success is not guaranteed in this very competitive field,” Donnelly said. “They need to take it seriously and admit to themselves that it is a lot of hard work. It’s not an easy major.”

The key to success, Donnelly said, is students being realistic about achieving goals.

Donnelly has not completely given up teaching.

Next fall, along with the administrative duties of being the Dean of the School of Communications Donnelly will also be teaching an intro to mass communications class.