• Academic Profiles
• Communication and Rhetorical Studies

Adrienne E. Hacker Daniels

Associate Professor
Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies

Education: Brooklyn College, B.A. 1974; Northwestern University, M.A. 1975; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ph.D. 1993

Courses: Public Speaking; Organizational Communication; Advertising; Introduction to Mass Communication; Communication Research Methods; Persuasion; Business and Professional Communication; Freedom of Expression; Communication Ethics; Rhetoric of Women’s Discourse; Rhetoric of Comedy; Rhetoric of Women’s Discourse; Communication Theory

Research Interest: Relationship between rhetoric and poetry theory

Professor Adrienne Hacker Daniels facilitates students in finding their voices and becoming more comfortable using them once they do.

“Don’t try to figure out what others want to hear from you,” says Hacker Daniels. “Figure out what you want to say. Enjoy your subject matter and internalize it. If you do that, the debilitating anxiety over public speaking will fade. I don’t expect every student to love public speaking as much as I do but I expect students to know how to do it. The love may come later.”

Hacker Daniels’ love for public speaking came quite early. Growing up in Brooklyn, she performed in school plays and summer camp productions. She enjoys getting up in front of a crowd and relishes the euphoria that follows delivery of a good speech.

“I appreciate language and the ways you can use it to build bridges with people and express emotion,” she says. “Public speaking is a powerful way of letting people better understand you and your ideas. It’s liberating.”

Hacker Daniels has been teaching speech and communication theory for more than 20 years at such institutions as Drake University, Iowa State University and St. Olaf College. She joined Illinois College in 2000 following a year as a visiting assistant professor at the University of St. Thomas.

Since coming to IC, Hacker Daniels and her colleagues have revamped the curriculum to enhance the integrity of the department’s program.  They increased the credit hours for public speaking, expanded the department’s interdisciplinary course offerings and added courses, such as Freedom of Expression, which is one of her favorite courses to teach.

“I like an interactive classroom,” says Hacker Daniels. “I have a general idea of what I want to accomplish but I leave it up to the students to decide what avenue we’ll take to get there. I can’t predict what will happen and I have no idea how it happens but miraculously, we get there.”
 
Although Hacker Daniels specializes in public speaking, she places equal emphasis on writing.

“In my mind, the spoken word and the written word don’t separate cleanly. The spoken word tends to be informal to a fault while the written word tends to be more formal and sometimes wooden. Good public speakers find a way to co-opt the best of the written word and blend it with the spontaneity of the spoken word.”

Hacker Daniels has had several articles published and presents papers at professional conferences. Most recently she delivered a paper entitled “Gertrude Stein: A Study in Autistic Spectrum Disorder Language” at the National Communication Association meeting in Boston. Hacker Daniels is writing a textbook on public speaking and is working on a number of essays.

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