Cream of the crop during a national search for Communication and Speech.
Gonzaga has hired a professor recently involved in controversy to a one-year, non-tenure track position as lecturer in the department of communication studies.
Melissa Click was fired from University of Missouri on Feb. 25 for trying to remove a photojournalist from a student protest, organized by the black-student advocacy group Concerned Student 1950, on Nov. 9, 2015, amid racial tensions on campus. She spent 12 years at the University of Missouri.
The protests were in response to a series of racist incidents on Missouri’s campus, and resulted in the resignation of UM President Tim Wolfe on the same day.
“She was very transparent and clear about some of the events at Missouri, so there was no surprise or anything,” said recently hired Communication Studies Department Chair Jonathan Rossing, a member of the search committee. “After the national search and the screens took place, she emerged as the top candidate based on her record of teaching, scholarship.
“The committee was unanimous in deciding that she would be one of the two people to whom we offered the job.”
Click received the job at GU in late June after a three-person search committee conducted a national search. She is one of three new hires in the department and is teaching four sections of Communication and Speech this fall, an introductory communications course
“Dr. Click was hired through an extensive national search process that revealed her to be the most qualified and experienced candidate for the position,” Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Elisabeth Mermann-Jozwiak said in a statement Friday. “Dr. Click has excellent recommendations for both her teaching and scholarship, which includes an extensive record of publication. We are confident she has learned much from her experiences at the University of Missouri and believe she will uphold the rigorous standards of academic excellence demanded of Gonzaga faculty and students.”