Kimberly M. Cuny

Kimberly M. Cuny, MA, MFA, holds a faculty appointment with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s (UNCG) Communication Studies Department where she has served as the director of The University Speaking Center since 2003. Kim is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Theatre where she is a North Carolina Theatre for Young People teaching artist and member of the graduate faculty. In the fall, Kim teaches a graduate course in oral communication for the MPA program at UNCG. Kim is currently serving as Co-Director of UNCG’s Multiliteracy Centers program. Before moving to UNCG in 2002, Kim was a full time instructor and Departmental Advising Coordinator at Monmouth University. Prior to that she held multiple part-time teaching positions throughout the NC community college system and at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Kim earned her MFA in Theatre for Young Audiences and MA in Communication Studies from UNCG. Kim earned her BA in Speech, Theatre, and Communication from Monmouth College in New Jersey. Kim has earned numerous service awards from the National Communication Association including Outstanding Service Engagement (2020), VonTill Communication Centers Newcomer (2008), Hobgood Distinguished Service (2013) to Communication Centers, and Turner Advocacy (2018). From the National Association of Communication Centers Kim and her coauthors received the first ever Ferguson Research Award (2010). Kim has been recognized for Teaching Excellence from Guilford Technical Community College (1998), the College of Arts and Sciences at UNCG (2018), and UNCG’s Anna Marie Gove Teaching Excellence (2021). Kim leads an iCorps team at UNCG, has served as co-principal investigator on numerous communicating science grant applications, and continues to provide consulting, training, and outside review to multiple communication centers. Kim served for 8 years as the Student Coordinator/Advocate of the National Communication Association’s Communication Centers Section (2005-13) and then served again from to 2017-2019. In 2014, Kim was appointed to the National Communication Association’s Presidential Task Force on Oral Communication in K-12 education. Kim currently serves as Co-Editor for Communication Center Journal. Kim previously served as both Managing Editor and Subscription Manager. Kim has served three times as conference planner and host for the National Association of Communication Centers’ Excellence at the Center Conference (2007, 2010, & 2019). Kim was a member of the leadership for the National Communication Association’s Communicating Common Ground initiative (2002-07). During the past 26 years, Kim has presented over 110 conference papers, faculty development workshops, panel presentations, and invited guest lectures. She has published more than 35 peer-reviewed pedagogical innovations, book chapters, and journal articles. Kim’s publications include an essay on the role employee engagement plays in successfully running a peer-to-peer learning space in the book Communicating Advice and a coauthored chapter on supporting marginalized voices in building sustained community movements in Teaching Communication Activism: Communication Education for Social Justice. Kim’s pedagogical and creative interests include radical pedagogy, experiential learning, speaking center studies, Learning for Justice, and use of storytelling, along with process drama, to help adults with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities and all young children make sense of the world around them. On the first day of kindergarten Kim told the story of Chicken Little to her class and she has been telling stories to kids ever since.

There are 21 included publications by Kimberly M. Cuny :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Art as a means of exploring public speaking anxiety: One communication center’s expressions 2015 635 Dwyer and Davidson’s 2012 research traces the genesis and transformation of the story behind myths about Americans’ greatest fears. The story starts with research, publicized in a 1973 London Times article, which essentially unmasked an almost mythic...
A Case Study of Outside Events verses the Thriving Speaking Center 2018 141 In April, at the Excellence at the Center Conference, I participated in a national discussion in my role as Managing Editor of Communication Center Journal (CCJ). During my contributions to that larger discussion I noted that I believe it is time for...
The Centrality of the Center: Best Practices for Developing a Robust Communication Center on Campus 2019 79 Communication centers are a complementary student service that can help stakeholdersimprove communication competency. Centers can often serve as a foundationalinterdisciplinary resource for communication students as well as those in other majors. Ast...
The Centrality of the Center: Best Practices for Engaging Students on Campus 2020 49 Communication centers exist primarily as a complementary student service (Strawser, Apostel, Carpenter, Cuny, Dvorak, & Head, 2019). As an integral campus student services, centers must place an overarching emphasis on student engagement. Student eng...
Communicating Nanoscience and the Communication Center: An INNOVATIVE Case Study 2019 78 Communication Centers are well positioned to support communicating science efforts across campus. This manuscript, written by faculty who designed and facilitated a potpourri of support for nanoscience during the 2017-18 academic year, provides a det...
Communication in the classroom for English teachers 2004 775 The body of research known as Teacher Immediacy Behaviors has grown substantially over the past 15 years. It represents interdisciplinary studies that connect the fields of education and communication. Over the past year we have had the opportunity t...
Critical perspectives on group consultations at communication centers: Communication accommodation theory, immediacy, and persuasion 2016 48 Communication centers provide assistance in the effort to enhance students’ speaking skills and they have been shown to be very effective as a resource and support across numerous campuses. The central purpose for any communication center continues t...
Developing mutually beneficial relationships with community partners 2001 58 The information presented is from personal experiences resulting from one year of planning followed by one year of team teaching The Power of Story with Claire B. Johnson at Monmouth University. The Power of Story is a Communicating Common Ground (CC...
The Digital media commons and the digital literacy center collaborate: The growing pains of creating a sustainable learning space 2015 258 Learning spaces that focus on technology in addition to writing and speaking are quickly becoming the norm, much like the newest learning space at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. As “many of the traditional expectations of faculty and...
Editorial Introduction 2020 49 2020 has indeed presented its challenges to all of us in the Communication Center community, as it has for most, if not, all. In fact, 2020 has itself become a cliché, a trope, a mantra, a scapegoat. For what did 2020 bring us within the United State...
Helping students have more positive experiences in the classroom: Part 2 2005 46 This article is the second in a two-part piece, published in 2005, that examines the relationship between a faculty member’s classroom behaviors and students’ interest in learning, students’ responsibility for their own learning, the controlling of p...
Music as an effective anxiolytic intervention in communication centers 2016 95 While all Communication Centers support speakers, through consultation, in becoming more confident and competent oral communicators, the staff at one center wondered about the anxiety that speakers bring with them into the consultation. As one would ...
Peer-to-peer tutoring: A model for utilizing empathetic listening to build client relationships in the communication center 2006 329 The staff of a college-level speaking center or lab has many responsibilities: increasing publicity, making sure things run smoothly, gaining buy-in from faculty across the curriculum, and recruiting new staff. As with any job, there are unwritten re...
Roles of Communication Centers in Communicating Science: A Multi-Disciplinary Forum 2019 116 This multi-disclipinary forum addresses how Communication Centers bridge the gaps between scientists and their public constituents, provides ways to teach scientific communication from the voice of a scientist, and invokng the perspective of science ...
Social Media’s Integration into Communication Centers: A UNC-Greensboro Case Study 2019 50 The UNC-Greensboro Speaking Center (SC) acknowledges the growing impact of social media as a means of sharing information, connecting with stakeholders, and fostering a community of practice. In this study, we review the history of social media integ...
The story of your name: building community in the service – learning classroom 2002 44 This activity can be beneficial to anyone who teaches classes which require student presentations, discussion, in-class activities, or other forms of oral communication.
Strategies for Assessment in Communication Centers: Perspectives from Across the Field 2015 515 This essay offers key highlights from a panel discussion that took place at the 2014 National Association of Communication Centers (NACC) conference at Arizona State University – West in Glendale, Arizona. The panel included communication center dire...
Successfully running a peer-to-peer learning space 2015 53 This piece describes how the author engages employees in order to develop a steward mentality among her tutors. She believes that emphasizing stewardship and satisfaction lead to a staff more willing to take on tasks and who have a stronger commitmen...
Unconditional positive regard, empathetic listening, and the impact of digital text driven communication 2012 1070 Generally speaking, Generation N students are known to enjoy working in groups yet they often do not communicate effectively when measured by traditional expectations. This activity calls into question the impact that our daily nonvocal digital commu...
Using empathetic listening to build relationships at the center 2012 1420 Administrators and staff at communication centers have many responsibilities: increasing publicity, making sure things run smoothly, gaining buy-in from faculty across the curriculum, and recruiting and training staff, to note a few. Emery (2006) arg...
The Work Around: How teaching with andragogical practices can normalize learning disabilities in education 2018 226 This chapter provides the author's own learning disabilities (LD) experiences as faculty director. It examines andragogy as the framework that helps the author to better ensure all of his students have opportunities to learn, regardless of who they a...