Communications School Dean : Rutgers Professor to Take CSUF Post

Cal State Fullerton President Jewel Plummer Cobb said Wednesday that Rutgers University professor David B. Sachsman has been named the first dean of Cal State Fullerton’s new School of Communications.

Cobb said Sachsman’s appointment is effective June 28. He is chairman of the department of journalism and mass media at the university in New Jersey.

The new School of Communications, which is being created by elevating the existing communications and speech departments to school status, begins operations July 1.

Sachsman, 42, is the author of seven books and monographs and is noted as a scholarly investigator of methods to inform the public about environmental dangers.

Cobb praised the background of the dean-designate, who holds a doctorate in public affairs communications from Stanford University.

“Chosen from an impressive nationwide field of 41 candidates, Dr. Sachsman brings to our campus a distinguished record of leadership, scholarship and outreach,” Cobb said.

“He has a clear sense of direction, a strong commitment to academic quality and a proven record of raising additional funds to make program improvements.”

Sachsman has been at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, since 1971, and he has been chairman of the department of journalism and mass media since 1983.

Sachsman is also involved in the graduate program in public health at Rutgers and is an adjunct associate professor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Cobb said Sachsman has been active “as principal investigator on two projects involving environmental-risk communication that are funded through the National Science Foundation.”

Book Adopted as Text

Sachsman’s books include: “Media: An Introductory Analysis of American Mass Communications,” which has been adopted as a text at more than 200 colleges and universities.

He is also a past president of the New Jersey professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi, and he is a member of the editorial boards of the publications, Mass Comm Review and Telematics and Informatics.

Sachsman earned his master’s in communication from Stanford and his bachelor’s in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Before joining Rutgers, Sachsman spent two years on the journalism faculty at Cal State Hayward, a sister university in the 19-campus California State University system.

The new School of Communications will become the seventh on the Cal State Fullerton campus.