Ithaca College

Diane Gayeski, dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications, gave keynote addresses at two conferences this summer. The first presentation was at the “Partnering for Performance” annual conference in May in Raleigh, NC. which brought together corporate training leaders from across the globe.

Gayeski’s keynote was titled, “Not Your Dad’s Schoolhouse: Partnering with Today’s Universities.” Her presentation outlined eleven distinct models for university / corporate partnerships focusing on the ways that universities and colleges are changing their strategies, curricula, and external relationships to meet the needs of students and the predicted changes in workforce requirements.

She also gave the keynote at the “Corporate Learning and Development One2One Summit” held in July in Bonita Springs, FL. Her keynote was titled, "Fasten Your Seatbelts: My Students Today are Your Top Talent Tomorrow." As recruiting, teaching, and retaining both college students and new recruits in companies is becoming more challenging, new approaches must be developed to engage them. This presentation focused on specific characteristics of the Millennial generation such as an increase in identified learning and psychological disabilities, diverse lifestyle choices, and communication technology usage which will impact corporate human resources practices.

Before becoming dean in 2010, Gayeski was a professor of strategic communications for over thirty years here at the college and through her consulting firm, Gayeski Analytics, has led more than 350 projects for clients worldwide. She is the author of over a dozen books, including the forthcoming third edition of IABC’s manual, “Managing the Communications Function” and more than one hundred articles on topics such as managing corporate learning and communication functions, emerging media and learning technologies, and new workforce demographics.