Dr. Victoria Simon Joins Felician University as Assistant Professor of Communications!

Dr. Victoria Simon, Assistant Professor of Communications, is excited and humbled to lead the Communication Studies Program at Felician University. She comes to Felician with a background in human/computer interaction, looking at interface design from a social justice perspective. She did her dissertation at McGill University on the history of music software interfaces, specifically touch screen interfaces, for people with disabilities. “I am interested in ideas of inclusivity, for example, inclusive of disabled populations, and how we can broaden interface design to be more accessible.” That perspective dovetails perfectly with Felician’s core values, one reason why Dr. Simon was excited to join the Felician Community in September of 2021. “The Felician Franciscan Values are very much in line with my values of inclusivity and looking at marginalized populations, and how to build more equitable futures for them and all of us.”

Her courses at Felician include Screenwriting, Film Analysis, History of Film Fiction, History of Film Documentary, and Public Speaking. While she is very excited to be teaching film courses, Dr. Simon is looking forward to rolling out a new digital media culture concentration that will include classes specific to digital media studies. She looks forward to building an interdisciplinary program that will bring together business, computer science, and media students as a kind of think tank. “How can we think about building better technologies and better businesses with social justice in mind?”

With a background in sound studies and production, Dr. Simon will teach a new sound studies class focusing on the theory and history of sound and the relationship between sound and society. “We live in a very visually dominated society where we are constantly bombarded by visual images,” says Dr. Simon, who points out that it is easy to get trapped in the idea that visuals are all that matter. “But in fact, sound permeates all facets of our society and is bound up in our way of understanding our culture and ourselves, so understanding the history and the politics of sound, and the role sound plays in society is important for students.” Dr. Simon gets very excited about giving students feedback on their podcasts and plans to build a strong sound studies component into the new concentration and offer a video game class called Sound and Games.

Dr. Simon is enthused about bringing relevant digital media companies into internship programs so students will have opportunities to engage in hands-on work with organizations that deal with social media. She hopes to offer a summer internship program with the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “That internship will be for students to communicate about issues of privacy and cybersecurity and will blend the issues that are important to digital media studies with communication, and how to communicate effectively about them.” She also says it is important for students to bring different community members into podcasts including organizations working with disability issues. “Having those voices come into student podcasts will be a blending of hands-on practice with sound production skills and critical thinking of why it matters.” Dr. Simon summed it up by saying she wants students to “learn how to think critically, creatively, and collaboratively, and to work collaboratively with others.”

Dr. Simon is excited about the future of the new major and thankful to Felician University for allowing her to develop a new concentration she believes will offer many benefits to students.