Faculty Profile for Dr. Michel Mae Haigh

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Michel M. Haigh brings a mix of practical and teaching experience to her position at Texas State. She joined the faculty in July of 2017.

Haigh currently serves as the BEA Research Committee Chair, is a member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications accrediting council, and routinely serves as a site-team member for ACEJMC.

Haigh served as SJMC Grad Director from July 2017 through the spring semester of 2023.

Haigh earned her undergraduate degrees at South Dakota State University (ag journalism and speech communication). She earned a master’s in agricultural education with an emphasis in agricultural communications at Texas Tech University prior to working for the Division of Ag Sciences at Oklahoma State. She worked as a writer/editor and produced the alumni magazine twice a year for the Oklahoma State Cooperative Extension service. Haigh earned a Ph.D. in communication studies at the University of Oklahoma in 2006.

She was a member of the ad/pr faculty at Penn State from 2006-2017 where she taught public relations writing, campaigns, research methods, freshmen seminar, and mass media and society. She also taught an intro to graduate studies for the master’s students. She has co-authored more than 40 conference presentations, seven of which have been recognized with the “Top Paper” award.

She has published more than 35 articles in journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Communication Monographs, Communication Research, the Newspaper Research Journal, and Communication Quarterly. Haigh gives back to the communication discipline in a number of ways. She was an officer in the Communication Theory & Methodology division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication serving as the teaching standards chair, the Midwinter meeting research chair, program planner, and chair of the division from 2011-2012.

Haigh was selected to attend the 2011 Scripps Howard Leadership Academy. And in 2012, she was recognized as a Plank Fellow by The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at The University of Alabama.

In 2014, Haigh was named to NerdScholar's "40 under 40" list of "professors who inspire," and was the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Communications Alumni Society Board. In 2015, she was recognized with the Excellence in Teaching Award from The National Society of Leadership and Success. She placed first in the 2007 Promising Professors competition coordinated through the Mass Communication & Society Division of AEJMC. Haigh was recognized with the Penn State College of Communications Deans’ Excellence Award in Research in 2008, and the Deans’ Excellence Award in Service in 2010.

Research Interests

Media Effects, Public Relations