We extend a warm welcome to Dr. Shanshan Lou who will serve as the Interim Dean for both the College of Fine and Applied Arts and the Hayes School of Music for the fall 2025 semester. Dr. Lou comes to us from the Department of Communication where she served as Chair for the past 2 years. We also want to extend our sincere gratitude to James Douthit for his exceptional service as Interim and Acting Dean of our college since June 2024. He has done a truly wonderful job in overseeing our college during this period of transition. We are incredibly grateful for his dedication, leadership, and unwavering commitment. He will be returning to the Hayes School of Music as faculty.
Dr. Shanshan Lou joined the College of Fine and Applied Arts faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication in 2013. Lou was promoted to associate professor in 2019 and to professor in 2024. During her tenure at Appalachian State University, Lou has served in multiple leadership roles, including acting assistant chair of the Department of Communication, CFAA dean’s fellow for special projects, interim chair of the Department of Art, and chair of the Department of Communication. She was recently honored by Academic Affairs with the Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes department chairs who, within their first two years of leadership, demonstrate exceptional achievements in supporting faculty, staff, students, and programs.
Lou received her PhD in Mass Communication from Ohio University. Her research interests center on cross-cultural advertising and the effects of media technologies on consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. Her research has been published in journals including the Howard Journal of Communications, Journal of Advertising Education, Journal of Applied Business and Economics, American Communication Journal, Atlantic Journal of Communication, Cogent Business & Management, and Journal of Global Business and Trade. Lou is also actively involved in the professional fields and has conducted research in global advertising with clients and academic colleagues in China, Germany, and the U.S.
In 2017, Lou received the Scripps Howard Foundation Visiting Professor in Media Ad Sales grant and was granted a fellowship from the Advertising Educational Foundation. Lou has been recognized with teaching awards from the College of Fine and Applied Arts at Appalachian State University and the Southern States Communication Association. In 2022, Lou was selected as one of the three UNC System Faculty Fellows, where she worked on a project examining innovation spaces across the UNC System. This work highlighted interdisciplinary collaboration and built cross-institutional partnerships to advance the study of innovative space utilization.
From 2021 to 2024, Lou served as Teaching and Pedagogy Chair in the Advertising Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Between 2020 and 2024, she organized the division’s pre-conference at the AEJMC annual convention, focusing on emerging trends in the advertising industry, such as AI applications in advertising education and research, and on addressing the talent gap between industry and academia. From 2016 to 2019, Lou collaborated with Publicis Media on its Multicultural Talent Pipeline initiatives and secured job and internship opportunities for students at Appalachian State University.
Dr. Shanshan Lou news
Dr. Shanshan Lou news