Robert A. Stewart, Ed.D.

Current

Rob Stewart is a Professor of Communication Studies and an Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Tech University.

Teaching and Research
His faculty role includes teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in communication theory, communication research, interpersonal communication, public communication, and seminars on special topics in communication, as well as facilitating graduate students' thesis research.  His areas of research interest cover religious communication, instructional communication, relational communication, and communication anxieties.  He has made presentations to and served as a paper reviewer or respondent for the National Communication Association, Religious Communication Association, International Communication Association, and Western States Communication Association, and was President of the Texas Speech Communication Association.  He is author or co-author on some 30 research articles and book chapters, and a co-author of the successful textbook, A Speaker's Guidebook, now in it's third edition.

During the spring semester of 2008, Rob is teaching the graduate course, Nonverbal Communication (COMS 5315).

College Administration
Stewart has served as an Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Tech since summer of 1997.  For three years he coordinated the college office handling all aspects of student matriculation and degree progress of over 10,000 undergraduates, and supervised a staff of 13.  In fall of 2000 his role moved to the faculty division of the Dean's office, in which capacity he has worked or currently works on aspects of curriculum and assessment for about 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, supervised and facilitated interdisciplinary programs, coordinates strategic planning and assessment for the college, assists the Dean with tenure and promotion policy and procedures, monitors faculty workload, facilitates faculty teaching awards, coordinates distance learning initiatives for the college, manages and edits the college's electronic announcement system (the "eNews"), and meets a variety of cyclic reporting requirements.  In this post he serves on the university's Academic Council, Associate Deans Council, Distance Learning Executive Committee, and Strategic Planning Council.  He is an active member of the national Council on Colleges of Arts and Sciences and the Texas Association of Deans of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Background

Education and Professional Experience
A 1980 graduate of Lubbock Christian College with a B.S. in Business Communication, Rob completed the M.A. in Speech Communication at Texas Tech University in 1981.  That fall, he entered the then joint doctoral program in Speech Communication and Educational Psychology at West Virginia University.  His studies at WVU generated his interests and early research programs in instructional communication and interpersonal communication.  The nascent expertise in instructional communication garnered employment attention of several universities as he completed the doctorate.  Fortunately, Texas Tech was among the most interested, was the most familiar, and was closest to home and family.  He began his faculty career in TTU's Department of Speech Communication in August, 1984, planning to stay a couple of years.  It's been 23.  In 1988, Stewart took his first administrative post, serving as Interim Chairperson of the department for a year while a national search commenced for a new chairperson.  He received tenure and promotion to associate professor in 1990.  He had also served as undergraduate advisor and graduate director in the department.  In the early '90's he directed the basic oral communication courses (Public Speaking, and Business and Professional Communication), enjoying most giving the mass lectures to the Business and Professional classes.  His research interests turned from instructional and interpersonal communication to religious communication, in which area he presented and published some research on communication aspects of prayer and of the Promise Keepers movement.  He became chairperson of the department in 1994.  In 1997, he was promoted to full professor.  Later that same spring he was appointed to the Dean's office.

Personal
Rob claims nativity in both Texas and New Mexico (it's an unusual story).  He was raised in Grants, New Mexico, and graduated from Grants High in 1976.  Soon after beginning his faculty job at Texas Tech, Rob met his wife Darla at their church in Lubbock in the winter of 1985.  She is a 1983 graduate of Harding University in Arkansas, having moved to Lubbock that year to join her parents.  Rob and Darla married in September, 1985.  Their first child, a daughter, was born in 1987.  The second, a son, was born in 1988.  And the third, a daughter, was born in 1990.  Tyne is now a junior at ACU, where Tate is a freshman.  Tara is a senior at Monterey High School in Lubbock.  Darla, an R.N., is a nurse manager at NorthStar Surgical Center.  The Stewarts have an 11-year old dog, Hershey, and a 1-year old cat, named Cat.