Dr. Andrea Lambert South, originally from a small town called Lincoln, Kansas, started her career at NKU fresh out of university. South started her undergraduate program at the University of Kansas. Then she earned her master’s in Texas and her doctorate at the University of Denver, where she studied human communication with a focus on interpersonal and family communication. She joined NKU  in 2006 and has continued to grow at the university since then. 

South has held leadership positions and helped with different boards, as well as serving as the undergraduate program director, graduate program director, program head and now director of the School of Media and Communication within the College of Informatics.

“Since joining NKU she has served as a visiting professor in the Czech Republic (while on sabbatical) and earned a J.D. from Chase Law in 2020,” College of Informatics Dean Kevin Kirby spoke highly of South in an email sent out to all staff. 

“It’s kind of cliche, but my school and department, they really are like family. We’ve been together for a long time and a lot of us have known each other for 18-20 years. I’ve known them longer than some of my friends growing up in life,” South said. “We just really care about each other and want to know what’s happening in each other’s lives. Of course, we care about each other’s careers, but we care about each other personally.”

Her newest position

According to NKU’s application for “Director of School Media and Communication,” the Director of the School of Media & Communication (SMC) provides leadership and vision for one of two schools in the College of Informatics. The director serves as supervisor of all school faculty and is a member of the college’s leadership team, reporting to the dean.

This position was only open to NKU faculty and required a tenured faculty appointment at the rank of associate or full professor in the College of Informatics, a record of successful administrative service, and effective communication and interpersonal skills. 

The end goal

“We’re always worried about growth and numbers, and as you know, things decline because there’s just less students and we’re competing with bigger universities that are kind of grabbing up students that they wouldn’t always grab up because they need to keep their numbers up. Which creates a problem for our numbers,” South expressed. 

She plans to fix these issues by making students feel visible at NKU. 

“Growth is important, and I still think we can do growth even if all those things are against us, right? Because, you know, when you think about people going to the University of Cincinnati that first year and there’s 50,000 students, you’re kind of just invisible. But as a sophomore at NKU, you feel like you will never be invisible here and we want people to know that.” 

Upcoming plans

“There’s a thing that I kind of plan to do during the first week of classes. I want to come in those first couple weeks to classrooms and I’m just going to come in for five minutes and be like, ‘Hey, here I am. I’m the director. You have an amazing professor. You’re gonna have such a good time.’  But also, I want them to know my face and give students my office number. I just want them to know me, because it makes it easier when you’re struggling with things, have issues or also just want to tell us something good that’s happened. So I want students to know that we are all accessible,” South said.