Courtney Childers

Courtney Carpenter Childers, PhD, was named associate dean for academic affairs and student success in the College of Communication and Information (CCI) at the University of Tennessee on July 1, 2024. Childers is implementing a unified approach to student success. She oversees academic programs and functional areas related to undergraduate and graduate student recruitment, retention, and support including, undergraduate programs and advising, career development, global programs, college-wide online programs, student recruitment, and residential college-wide graduate programs.

A member of the CCI faculty since 2006, Childers is a full professor in the Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations. She served as interim director of the School of Journalism and Media from January 2023 to June 2024 where she helped facilitate four new hires, chaired the search for the WUOT general manager, led the CCI Media Center Integration Committee, supported a successful faculty vote on the name change to School of Journalism and Media, supported the school’s ACEJMC reaccreditation process, and managed a budget of approximately $3 million in fiscal year 2024. 

Childers is the founding Executive Director of the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center (2012-2023), one of the first social listening command centers at an academic institution in the United States.

Childers’s research interests deal with societal issues and advertising. Recent research projects have focused on emerging media impacting the advertising and public relations fields, influencer marketing, social media, advertising agencies workflow, and advertising pedagogy. Childers has published in the Journal of Advertising, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Media Psychology, Journal of Current Research and Issues in Advertising, and the Journal of Consumer Affairs.

Education

• PhD, Communication & Information Sciences, University of Alabama
• MA, Advertising & Public Relations, University of Alabama
• BA, Mass Communications, Middle Tennessee State University
• BA, Psychology, Middle Tennessee State University

Research Interests

• Advertising to children
• Food/beverage marketing
• Parental responses to advertising
• Societal issues
• Social media marketing
• Influencer marketing