Rebecca L. Cooney

Rebecca L. Cooney, M.S. is a professional communicator with more than 25 years of strategic communication experience in conceptual design, implementation, monitoring and metrics of comprehensive integrated projects and campaigns for traditional media and digital platform initiatives. In addition to her ongoing activities in industry, she is a Clinical Associate Professor of Strategic Communication with an emphasis in public relations and digital media and serves as the Director of Murrow Online Programs for The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University (WSU). She is also a Research Associate with a collaborative natural product and drug interaction grant sponsored by the Natural Institutes of Health in partnerships with the pharmaceutical colleges at the University of Washington and WSU called NaPDI – Center for Natural Product-Drug Interaction Brand Materials.

Rebecca joined the Murrow faculty in 2012 and teaches a full load of undergraduate and graduate courses focused on integrated communications, writing for public relations, digital marketing campaigns, brand and consumer insights, employee communications and advertising. She holds a BA in communications from California State University Sacramento and an MS degree in communications from Eastern Washington University.

Before WSU she spent more than 10 years in higher education administration in leadership roles for marketing and university relations, business development, website coordination and regional communication initiatives. She also worked in corporate as director of marketing for an international educational travel company and served as an adjunct professor at two universities. She started her career at a full-service ad agency and continues to grow in the areas of strategic communications, integrated communications, public relations, brand and message platforms and digital communications.

Rebecca is married with four children and resides in Pullman, WA. She considers herself a lifelong learner and finds experiential learning opportunities to be the most beneficial and applicable to everything she does.

Recent Awards & Fellowships:

• 2019 Murial Oaks Award recipient for innovation in teaching: The Oaks award, named in honor of visionary innovator Dr. Muriel Oaks, WSU Dean Emeritus, recognizes a faculty member’s innovative application of an existing technology to transform teaching and learning in their classroom. Award entry title: Integrated Communication Systems in the Classroom: Application of Google Drive in Group Projects.
• 2019 Campus Community Forum poster presentation (Pullman, WA Apr 2019) In fall 2018 a Center for Civic Engagement collaborative partnership was created between Whitman County Public Health (WCPH) and COMSTRAT 383 Media Strategies and Techniques for Public Relations (383). The focus of the overall project is to raise awareness about locally significant public health issues. In the fall semester 2018, 41 students across 10 teams established a vision and strategy for seven awareness campaigns and three special projects. In spring 2019, 20 students were broken out into five teams charged with implementing these campaigns through public relations, social media engagement, website development, grassroots outreach, and new digital content creation efforts. Throughout, WCPH provides students with current statistics and research regarding prevalent health-related issues within Whitman County including vaccination administration (flu, Tdap, and HPV), the benefits of breastfeeding, and the dramatic rise of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among the residents of Whitman County. WCPH also meets with the students regularly via Zoom video conference. Poster title: A Partnership in Public Health Awareness
• 2018 EDUCAUSE poster presentation (Denver, CO Oct 2018) “A Student-focused Approach to Cultivating a Creative Innovation Ecosystem.” Serve as co-presenter with lead presenter Chris Cooney. We will share the best practices and student-focused collaborative infrastructure that evolved through the creation of The Spark, an 83,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art teaching and learning space, a campus-wide technology partnership with Adobe, and the Amazon Catalyst entrepreneurship competition.
• 2018 LIFT Faculty Fellows- program focuses on the implementation of pedagogical and behavioral innovations and implementations across the undergraduate curriculum with goals to support students’ academic success, increase their life skills and resilience, and transform their experience at WSU. LIFT Fellows are part of the university-wide Transformational Change Initiative, a project funded by the 2016 strategic reallocation grants.
• 2016 Washington Consortium for the Liberal Arts PR Campaign (WaCLA) #ifeelinspired $10,000 award. Serve as co-faculty advisor on proposal, design, and implementation of the campaign in 2017-18
• 2015 Scripps Howard Visiting Professor in Social Media partnered with The Sacramento Bee for two weeks in Sacramento, CA to learn first-hand how news and information delivery is being transformed by digital media.
• 2014 Plank Center Educator Fellow Harley Davidson Motor Co.