Professors Eric Haley and Candace White are the next recipients of the School of Advertising and Public Relations’ DeForrest Jackson Professorship.
The professorship is held by tenured faculty members in the school on a three-year rotating basis. Haley and White will hold the professorship from August 1, 2020 to July 31,2023. They succeed Mariea Hoy, who was selected as the inaugural recipient of the professorship in 2017.
The DeForrest Jackson Professorship, ADPR’s first named professorship, was created with a gift from Suzanne Sackleh Masters of Atlanta. She earned her bachelor’s degree in advertising in 1989 and made the gift in honor of her favorite professor, DeForrest Jackson.
After retiring from his job as Coca-Cola’s communications director, Jackson moved from Atlanta to Knoxville, where he earned his master’s degree in communications from UT and served as an associate professor of advertising until his retirement in 1996. He died in 2013.
Haley joined the UT faculty in 1992 and became a full professor in 2005. His research focuses on political advertising, advertising agencies and a variety of advertising and society topics. He is an award-winning teacher and has taught a broad spectrum of graduate and undergraduate courses. He has been dedicated to providing students with professional opportunities including establishment of the annual Ad Club networking trip to New York City, which he has led for more than 25 years.
He has held numerous leadership and editorial roles in the American Academy of Advertising and is currently serving as the organization’s President. He was the Executive Editor of the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, and the Journal of Interactive Advertising from 2014 to 2017. In 2016, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from UGA’s HW Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Haley, a former associate dean for undergraduate studies (1998-2002) and development associate to the dean of the College of Communications (1996-2002), holds a Ph.D. in mass communication with an emphasis in advertising from the University of Georgia.
White came to UT in 1995 and became a full professor in 2015. Her research interests focus on public relations including: public policy research on surveillance capitalism and the rapidly-evolving data economy, critical social media literacy, social media ethics and social responsibility, the role of global corporations as non-state actors in public diplomacy, and the relationship between corporate social responsibility and the national reputation of the country with which the corporation is associated. She is a Faculty Fellow at the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy in the area of global security and a recipient of a Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center.
White is an award-winning teacher whose research and teaching have taken her around the world. She was a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the University of Salzburg, Austria (2010), and was selected for a Fulbright position this summer at the University of Siena, Italy. She has lectured in Denmark, Scotland, Wales, Austria, Croatia, and Italy, and led public relations-focused study abroad terms to Siena, Italy, as part of CCI Global Programs.
White, a former faculty voting member of the UT Board of Trustees (2007-2008) and a former president of the UT Faculty Senate (2004-2005), holds a Ph.D. in mass communication with an emphasis in higher education administration from the University of Georgia.