While NKU President Cady Short-Thompson has only been in her presidential role since October of 2023, she will be adding another responsibility to her to-do list in the fall: professor.
Short-Thompson will be joining forces with Dr. Zach Hart, program head of communication and public relations, to bring CMST 330 Political Communication to Griffin Hall.
But the president is no stranger to teaching—or to the course.
In fact, it was Short-Thompson who began the Political Communication course in her previous stint as a communication professor at NKU from 1996-2010. “I believe I created [Political Communication] somewhere around 1998 or 1999, and I taught the class in a way that focused predominantly on presidential politics,” Short-Thompson said.
How Short-Thompson got involved for the fall
When Hart came to NKU in 2003, it was actually Short-Thompson who was on the search committee that hired him. The two got to know each other pretty well, as it was also Short-Thompson who started NKU’s public relations program.
“I’ve known her for so long,” Hart explained. “She’s the president, but I know her from a long time [ago], so I still think of her as Cady from my time.”
The topic of political campaign communication was actually the president’s research expertise, Hart recalled. Short-Thompson participated in a research project where she would travel to New Hampshire before the first primary election, attending campaign events and collecting data on how the candidates presented themselves.
Knowing Short-Thompson’s deep-rooted affiliation to the topic, Hart began talking with his department about getting the president involved in the class. Considering Short-Thompson’s time-consuming role, Hart had no expectation that the president would say yes to being a professor.
Short-Thompson, however, already had teaching at the forefront of her mind. “I was already thinking, ‘I wonder when I can teach with someone,” she said.
The president said that team teaching is the best way for her to fulfill a professor role, as there may be events or presidential responsibilities that she has to care for throughout the semester.
The challenge of teaching politics
A course about politics isn’t necessarily an easy topic, Hart said, but the two will find a way to make the class objective and welcoming.
The class will focus on politics strictly from a communications perspective, looking at strategies used by different candidates and analyzing how they are working—or not working.
“We really try to take much more of a non-biased type of view. We’re not going to be inserting, ‘Well here’s my political views,’” Hart said.
Short-Thompson said in previous years of teaching the class, she focused on setting “ground rules of engagement,” placing an expectation of kindness, respectfulness and thoughtfulness during interactions. The president said while she encourages students to feel welcome sharing their beliefs, professionalism is most important.
Another important factor, especially now as president, is to ensure her own political beliefs are not obvious to the class.
“Over all the years of me teaching [Political Communication], I used to always ask students as a final question in the exam to identify me by party affiliation. And they never succeeded,” Short-Thomspon recalled with a smile.
What students can expect from the course
The fall Political Communication course will be hybrid style: meeting on Mondays in Griffin Hall from 6:15-7:30 p.m. and supplementing the other hours in an online format.
Rather than focusing purely on the presidential election, the course will take a deeper look into Kentucky politics. Short-Thompson said she will bring her experience from the last six months working with lobbyists, senators and representatives in Frankfort to the classroom. Bringing in guest speakers of all party backgrounds and all levels of experience is important to the president. The course will also dig into legislation, policies and history, rather than just campaigns.
Of course, since the special topics class is strategically placed during an election year, the class will keep up with the presidential election.
“We’ll probably talk about debates, but who knows what’s going to happen with that,” laughed Hart.
“There will definitely be some elements that you just can’t predict,” Short-Thompson said.