The Institute for Shipboard Education (ISE), nonprofit parent organization of world-renowned study abroad program Semester at Sea (SAS) is pleased to announce the appointment of T. Kenn Gaither as its new president and CEO. Gaither, an associate professor and associate dean of communications at Elon University, will become the Institute’s fourth president in its fifty-year history.
Dr. Gaither has an extensive history with SAS, sailing on nine voyages with the program and most recently served as executive dean on the summer 2012 voyage. Gaither has also taught on Semester at Sea and sailed in several staff positions, including field office coordinator and assistant executive dean. He officially begins his tenure at ISE on August 1.
As a member of Elon faculty, Gaither taught courses in international public relations, public relations, and mass communication. He has published in several public relations journals, including the Journal of Public Relations Research and Public Relations Review, and serves as series editor for the Cambria Press Communication Collection. He has written or co-authored three books, most recently Globalization and Public Relations in Postcolonial Nations: Challenges and Opportunities (Cambria, 2012). Gaither also has more than nine years of professional public relations agency experience and was part of a public relations team that won a Hyundai MicroElectronics of America Excellence in Service Award for public relations work associated with its $4.5 billion merger with LG Semicon in 1999.
Gaither earned his Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Park Doctoral Fellow and outstanding graduating Ph.D. student in his class. He has an M.F.A. in literary journalism and B.A. in English Writing/Latin American Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Gaither speaks Portuguese and has lived or taught in Brazil, Ghana, and China.
