Stephen Stifano

Associate Professor in-Residence

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Department of Communication

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Education

Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 2011

About

Steve Stifano, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in-Residence and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Communication. Dr. Stifano’s primary areas of interest are Instructional Communication, the Communication of Emotion, and Curricular and Program development. He provides training for the department’s teaching assistants, instructs and coordinates the large-lecture introductory communication course, and has led the effort to revive digital media production courses in the department. His teaching has been widely-recognized: In 2016, the National Communication Association named COMM 1000 a Basic-Course Program of Distinction for serving as a best-practice model for introductory communication courses.  Recently, Dr. Stifano became the first UConn faculty member ever to win both University-wide faculty teaching awards: The Teaching Innovation Award (2019) and the University Teaching Fellow Award (2022).

As Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Stifano led a complete overhaul of the department’s Undergraduate Curriculum, and has spearheaded the development of our FastTrack BA/MA Program.  Since 2021, Dr. Stifano has also chaired the CLAS Committee on Curricula and Courses, where he guided UConn’s largest college through the transition to the new Common Curriculum, and led the creation of a new set of college-level curricular requirements.  In research, Dr. Stifano mixes his background in Nonverbal Communication and Emotion with his work as a teacher, independent filmmaker, and multimedia designer.  He has published chapters in The Routledge International Handbook of Emotion and Media and Social Intelligence and Nonverbal Communication, and won five Top Papers Awards from the National Communication Association across Mass Communication, Health Communication, and Theatre, Film, and New Multimedia. Dr. Stifano’s current interests are focused on Instructional Communication, and particularly how Immediacy Behaviors shape classroom experiences and outcomes for both students and instructors.

Courses Taught

• COMM 1000: The Process of Communication
• COMM 2000Q: Research Methods in Communication
• COMM 2100: Professional Communication
• COMM 3798: Multimedia Storytelling
• COMM 4700: Narrative Digital Video Production
• COMM 4710: Nonfiction Digital Video Production
• COMM 4979: Digital Portfolio
• COMM 5050: Communication Pedagogy

Research Interests

• Immediacy behaviors in Instructional Communication.
• Impacts of power and compliance-gaining strategies in the classroom.
• The influence of emotion in narrative media and health PSAs.
• Quantifiable measures of mediated communication between content creators and audiences
• Visualization, Presentation, and Representation of quantitative data for diverse audiences

Watch

• Multimedia Stimulus Design: Thinking Methodologically and Creatively (Department of Communication Colloquium Talk.)
• Speak as a Storyteller: Improving your Presentations across Formats (UConn CETL & UConn Orientation Training Talk.)