Shaun T. Schafer is the associate vice president of curriculum, academic effectiveness and policy development in the Department of Academic Affairs at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Schafer is also professor in the Journalism and Media Production Department. His areas of expertise include media law, media ethics, free press, curriculum policies and artificial intelligence in academic settings.
Kip Wotkyns, MBA, is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Production at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He teaches intro to journalism and mass media; and ethical and legal issues in journalism.
Wotkyns has 24 years of experience as a journalist. He worked for Time Inc. for 14 years, was a reporter for FORTUNE magazine and a copy editor for TIME magazine. Wotkyns was also the president of Leman Publications Inc., a magazine publishing company formerly owned by Rodale Press Inc. He joined MSU Denver in 2008 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. He is a member of Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication and Society of Professional Journalists, as well as faculty advisor for Colorado Press Association.
His research interests include journalism, convergent journalism, social media and drone journalism. Some of Wotkyns’s more recent published works are “Drone Journalism: A Flight Plan for Curriculum Development” in the 7th Annual International Conference on Journalism & Mass Communications in 2018 and “New, Bold and Tenuous: Ethiopian Journalism Education” in Southwestern Mass Communication Journal. He has given several presentations on journalism around the country and in Singapore.
Wotkyns received his Master of Business Administration in media management and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 1979 and a bachelor’s in English magna cum laude from Stanford University in 1976. He is a licensed remote pilot airman.
William Huddy, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Communications at Metropolitan State University of Denver where he teaches Communication Research and Theory Building, Campus Communication, Communication and Politics and Public Speaking.
Prior to teaching, Huddy worked in the field of radio and television for 20 year and has experience working in the areas of reporting, anchoring, editing, photojournalism, advertising and news directing. His primary research interests include media and celebrities, dependence on mobile phone technology, student engagement in public speaking, dynamic changes in political campaigning (and the importance of internet campaigning with less reliance on television) and new methods in communication as a means of activism and social justice.
Huddy received his Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Denver in 2012, a master’s in instructional communication from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in 2003 and a bachelor’s in mass communication and international relations from California State University in 1975.
Mindy Glover, M.A., is an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Darrin C. Duber-Smith, M.S., MBA, is a senior lecturer at Metropolitan State University of Denver’s College of Business, where he teaches Sports Marketing, Green Marketing, Seminar in Marketing Management and Advertising Management courses.
Duber-Smith has more than 30 years of specialized expertise in the marketing and management profession, including decades of work with natural, organic and green/sustainable goods and services.
As president of Green Marketing, Inc. from 2000-16, Duber-Smith was a co-founder of the Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability market/industry model and was leader of the first U.S. industry task force that helped frame the Natural Products Association’s definition of natural in 2005.
He has co-authored several academic papers, including “State of the Economy and Attitudes Toward Sales Careers,” “Student Disposition Towards Sales as a Career,” “The Evolution of an Award-Winning Assessment Plan” and “Gender Bias in Consumer Perceptions of Salespeople.” He has published over 90 marketing-related articles and book chapters in various business publications, and he has been an invited speaker at over 50 executive-level events.
Duber-Smith has been the most frequently-interviewed marketing expert in Colorado media since 2005, and he authored Cengage Learning’s “KnowNow! Marketing” blog from 2011-2019.
Duber-Smith received The Wall Street Journal’s In-Education Distinguished Professor Award in 2009 and WSJ’s Top 125 Professor Award in 2014.
Jeremy Castle, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include United States elections, public opinion, polarization, religion and politics, church and state, and media and politics. Castle currently teaches American National Government and Conducting Political Analysis.
Prior to joining MSU Denver, Castle worked as a lecturer and postdoctoral teaching fellow at Central Michigan University. He received an honorable mention during his time as a Presidential Fellow in the graduate research fellowship at the University of Notre Dame. He was awarded several grants for research projects, including grants from the Rooney Center for American Democracy.
Castle’s research areas include political polarization; religion and politics; and media and politics, especially how popular films and pop culture influences public opinion. His primary research examines the role of religion in political polarization in the United States. He also has studied Martin Luther King Jr.’s contributions to political philosophy. Castle’s work includes “The Effect of the #MeToo Movement on Political Engagement and Ambition in 2018” published in Political Research Quarterly and “New Fronts in the Culture Wars?: Religion, Partisanship, and Polarization on Transgender Rights and Religious Liberty in the United States,” published in American Politics Research.
Castle received both his doctorate and master’s degrees in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 2015 and 2012, respectively. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from Hanover College in 2010.
Shelby M. Balik, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver where she teaches courses in early American history, American religious history, American slavery and social studies education. She is a former high school social studies teacher and still works with pre-service teachers and remains engaged in issues that affect public education. Her areas of expertise include American slavery, historical memory and American political Philosophy.
Balik has published in the “Journal of Church and State,” the “New England Quarterly,” the “Massachusetts Historical Review,” and the “Journal of Social History.” Her book, “Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England’s Religious Geography” (Indiana, 2014), won the 2014 Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award, and she is currently researching a book on the politics and practice of household religion in eighteenth-century North America.
Balik earned her Ph.D. and master’s in early American history and religion from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006. In addition, she also has a master’s in education from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1994.
