Communication and Mass Media

Ph.D., PhDr., M.A., Charles University, Czech Republic
B.A., University of Windsor, Canada

Dr. Todd Nesbitt is Chair of the department of Communication and Mass Media at UNYP, and is the Prague director of the Master's program in Professional Communication and Public Relations granted by La Salle University. He holds a Ph.D., PhDr., and a Master’s Degree from the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism of the faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University, and a bachelor's degree in Communication Studies and a letter of equivalency in English from the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Nesbitt has taught courses at the faculties of Law, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Charles University. He was awarded the outstanding faculty award for teaching excellence at UNYP in 2004. His research interests include strategic political communication, media globalization and media ownership, and his community involvement has consisted of holding public talks on, contributing to the local press about, and giving seminars and teaching courses at public schools on media related issues.

David Alon

M.A., University of Sorbonne, France

David Alon teaches the Media History class at the UNYP since Spring 2010, after a previous experience at the University of Ohio in Prague (History of Western societies). He graduated from the University of Sorbonne (Paris) with a Bachelor in History, supplemented by a year of High School of Literature in Paris (Hypokhâgne). After his studies, he entered the National French Radio for an internship of journalism of four months (section literature, theatre and cinema) and wrote for different magazines. Since his arrival in Prague, in 2003, he works as an external journalist at the French redaction of Radio Prague (Český Rozhlas), where he holds the sections History and Economy. In parallel, since 2003, he is the correspondent in Prague for Le Guide Routard (the French Lonely Planet),  whose he updated and wrote several editions (Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Spain). 

William A. COHN

J.D., the University of California, USA
B.A., Stanford University, USA

Mr Cohn is an attorney and constitutional law scholar, has practiced and taught law since 1993, working with clients, judges, international organizations, bar associations and scholars, lecturing and publishing extensively on issues of international jurisprudence. Bill has served on the UNYP faculty since 2002, teaching law, ethics and critical thinking in its undergraduate and graduate programs. He has also taught at Stanford University, lectured at Charles and Anglo-American Universities and taught U.S. law students studying in Prague. Bill was voted the outstanding faculty member by the 2007 UNYP graduating class. In 2010, he has been nominated for the Lorenzo Natali Prize by the European Commission in recognition of contribution to rule of law, human rights and democracy, and appeared as amicus curiae before the International Criminal Court in The Hague in a case of first impression under international law.
Mr. Cohn received his law degree from the University of California and his B.A. degree from Stanford University. He practiced law for a decade in California, where he was honored by the State Bar for his work and the law firm he founded was selected as a sponsor firm of the Bar Association of San Francisco. A member of the State Bar of California, he is admitted for practice in U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals. Bill has worked on Capitol Hill, for a U.S. federal district court judge, and at the United Nations. He was invited by the Board of the J. William Fulbright Commission to assist the Commission in developing its agenda and program on the Rule of Law.

Ph.D,, University of Washington, USA,
B.A., Santa Clara University, California, USA

Dr. Critz has worked extensively in the IT industry, primarily for Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, California USA, and at universities in the US and Central Europe as both an educator and consultant on technical and business management issues. He obtained a doctorate in Linguistics from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, and continues to apply linguistic analysis to understanding of how people think and communicate in the business environment and using internet based technologies. He has applied his research to the development of intelligent software systems to support management and technical experts in solving business problems. In Silicon Valley he was part of a team that developed an education program to help new technology start-up companies request VC funding and bring their business management skills up to speed. At UNYP teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in business management, information technologies and communications with a particular emphasis on knowledge management, process and performance analysis and the use of current technologies such as web design, multimedia, ecommerce and intelligent tools.

Alena Foustkova

M.F.A., Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic

She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with M.F.A. in 1982. Alena lived and worked for eleven years in Toronto, Canada and moved with her family back to Prague in 1995.
Alena has been working in advertising for over 25 years and her experience spans from national to multinational advertising agencies like Saatchi&Saatchi or EURO RSCG both in Canada as well as in the Czech Republic. She serviced clients such as Canadian Ministry of Education, Amex, Toyota, Peugeot, Komerční Banka (Societé Générale) or Opavia (LU) to name a few.
She held positions of a Senior Art Director and a Creative Director and her work brought her numerous Czech and international awards.
Apart from teaching, Alena is currently working as a full-time artist and is exhibiting her works on a regular basis. Her latest solo exhibition was in Prague in the Gallery of Critics in April 2010. In her work she reflects her interest in communication and media. Over the years, she has also illustrated and designed several books.

Ciaran Kelly

M.A., The George Washington University, USA
B.A., California State University, Long Beach, USA
B.A., California State Univeristy, Long Beach, USA
 
After working his way through school at Disneyland, he was part of the team that built the Commodore VIC 20 and Commodore 64 (remember those?!) home computers.
Kelly has spent 25 years in international sales management, including interior design, sports and the auto industry. (You havent lived until you sell hunting weapons in Virginia just as hunting season opens!)  Kelly moved to Praha in Summer 1992.  Since then he has sold 400,000 cars, coached the Prague Panthers to their first 4 championships in American football, got married and has 5 children.  In the Summer of 2012, Kelly will start as the International Business Director of Skoda Auto.  Kelly has taught Introduction to Advertising and Principles of Marketing at UNYP since 2008.
 

Brian Kenety

Diploma in Journalism, NCTJ, UK (in progress)
B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Brian Kenety has been reporting from Europe since 1995 and teaching journalism/writing at UNYP since the 2010 spring semester. He got his start as a network TV news production assistant in Washington, D.C. and later worked for Japan's leading daily, the Asahi Shimbun, in the newspaper's United Nations bureau in New York City.  After heading overseas, he became a regional stringer for the Inter Press Service (IPS), for which he covered Bulgaria and Macedonia, as well as Kosovo (during the 1998/1999 war and refugee crisis). He was later hired on as the news agency’s European Union correspondent; during his three-year posting with IPS in Brussels, he traveled extensively, covering EU summits and other events throughout Europe and Africa. Now a Prague-based freelance journalist/editor, he is a former correspondent for the Czech Press Agency and Czech national radio (Cesky Rozhlas), and most recently served as Prague/Bratislava bureau chief for Interfax, the independent Russian news agency.

Frank Kuznik

B.A., John Carroll University, USA

Frank Kuznik is the former Editor-in-Chief and Culture Editor of The Prague Post, the English-language weekly in the Czech capital. A lifelong journalist, Frank graduated from John Carroll University in 1972 with degrees in English and education. He has written for a wide variety of publications in the U.S., and been the editor of magazines and newspapers in Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and Washington, DC. He relocated to Prague in 2002 and has been teaching at UNYP since the spring of 2003.
 

M.A., FAMU, Czech Republic

Beth Lazroe teaches Analysis of Media Images and as well as Visual Culture at UNYP. She holds a Master’s degree from FAMU, Czech Republic, and a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language to adults from the University of Cambridge. She has taught at Dublin City University in Ireland, as well as at FAMU in Prague. She began her photographic career at Contrejour, Paris, 1977, where she had her first exhibition, and in 1978 moved to Ireland, becoming a member of the National Union of Journalists of Ireland and Great Britain in 1981. In 1988 she established, through the Dublin Civic Museum, the first Community Photographic Archive within the public library system. She has received assistance from the Irish Arts Council, Dublin Corporation, Ilford Limited, Agfa-Gevaert Limited and other private sponsors. Mrs. Lazroe publishes, exhibits and lectures throughout Europe, and FAMU published a textbook in Visual Communication written by her in 1998.

M.A., University of Leicester, UK,
B.A., University of Sussex, UK

Mrs. Slavickova teaches Introduction to Communication and Public Speaking in the Communication and Mass Media Department at UNYP. She received a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester, and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Lancaster University, England. Mrs. Slavickova has worked as an English language teacher in Portugal, France and the UK, before training as a book editor at Oxford University Press. She has also worked at the British Council in the Czech Republic as editor in chief of Perspectives, a journal for teacher trainers in central Europe. In 2007 she also set up her own school of English in Prague, specializing in training for examinations and business presentations.

Lucia Tarbajovská

MBA, Steinbeis University in Berlin, Germany
BA, National American University, the United Arab Emirates

Lucia Tarbajovska teaches Advanced Public Relations at UNYP. She studied for her bachelors’ degree at Skyline College at the National American University in the United Arab Emirates, and received her Master’s degree from Berlin School of Creative Leadership at the Steinbeis University in Berlin, Germany. Miss. Tarbajovska is a renowned expert in brand and communications area. Before establishing her own company specializing in brand and strategic planning, she worked as Vice-president of marketing communications at T-Mobile Czech republic. She has vast professional experience having worked on various marketing positions for brands abroad as well as in the Czech Republic. Companies she has worked for include Vodafone Czech Republic, Montblanc, Bang & Olufsen Middle East, Samsung Gulf Electronics, CESMAD Slovakia and Globtel GSM.

CSc. (Ph.D.), Ing., Prague School of Economics, Czech Republic

Josef Vacl teaches Introduction to Public Relations in the Communication and Mass Media Department at UNYP. He holds a CSc. (Ph.D. equivalent) and a Master’s Degree (Ing.) from the Prague School of Economics, where he specialized in international trade. Josef Vacl has taught also at The College of Tourism, Hotel And Spa Management (Marketing of Services) where he served also as the Vice-Rector for Academic and Scientific Affairs. He has also taught Advertising & Public Relations on the IUKB MBA program at UNYP. Josef Vacl has presented papers at numerous international conferences, and publishes regularly in the popular as well as professional press. Josef Vacl has had a significant professional career. He was stationed for 6 years as a representative of the leading Czech travel and hotel corporation in New York. He was also CEO of the Maccorp Holding Ltd. (finance and travel) and CEO of the Certum Pension Fund. He worked for 6 years for Burson - Marsteller, the leading PR agency in the world, and was in charge of clients such as Boeing, GE Money Bank, Visa International etc. He has also worked in the areas of international conference coordination.

Ph.D., Mgr., B.A., Palacky University, Czech Republic

Dr. Veronika Zavrelova teaches in the department of Communication and Mass Media. She earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. She also holds a Master’s degree in English and Czech Philology, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the same University. Dr. Zavrelova has significant instructional experience in both the American and Czech educational systems: She has taught at the University of Nebraska and Beloit College in Wisconsin, worked on research at Earlham College in Richmond Indiana, and was also a full-time faculty member at Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Czech Republic, where she also served as Vice-Dean for International Relations. At UNYP, Dr. Zavrelova has taught Interpersonal Communication, Communication Among Cultures, Sociolinguistics, and Organizational Communication. Dr. Zavrelova has presented papers at numerous international conferences, and has published regularly in the popular press in both English and Czech. She has also worked in the areas of international conference coordination, and human resources consulting.

 

Peter Zvagulis

Ph.D. Candidate, University of Wales, UK
MA, University of Latvia
Csc/ABD, Academy of Sciences of Latvia
PhD/ABD, Columbia Commonwealth University, MT, USA

Peter Zvagulis came to UNYP at the beginning of 2007. He teaches World News in Historical Perspective and Applied Social Science Research. He has also taught Nationalism, Identity and Prejudice. Peter is active researcher and his method of measuring the impact of hate speech on public mind has been adopted for researches by European Commission and by the government of Latvia. He actively participates in research conferences and has represented UNYP as panel speaker at the 2007 Vulnerability and Tolerance conference at the Amsterdam Free University. Peter currently does his PhD in applied theology at the University of Wales, UK. He holds an MA in humanities from the University of Latvia.  His other academic expertise includes a certificate of Csc/ABD in History of Philosophy from Academy of Sciences of Latvia where he has worked as a researcher, and a certificate of PhD/ABD in communications from Columbia Commonwealth University, MT, USA. Peter is a former journalist with experience in newspaper, radio and TV reporting. More than 13 years of his career has been with Radio Free Europe in New York, Munich and Prague. He uses his professional knowledge and multi-cultural experience in working as a volunteer with NGOs and helping the refugee communities in the Czech Republic to overcome cultural and religious differences in their new home country.  Peter speaks English, French, Latvian, Russian, German and Czech.