Service & Leadership

In Fall 2023, Dr. Knopf became the Assistant Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at SUNY Cortland. She has also chaired or co-chaired multiple college committees (including SUNY Potsdam's English & Communication Student Liaison, Curriculum, and Personnel Committees; the SUNY Cortland Communication & Media Studies Personnel and Curriculum Committees, and a search committee; the SUNY Cortland Educational Programming Subcommittee of the Antiracism Task Force, the Presentation Skills Committee, and the Faculty Mentoring subcommittee of PRODiG). And, Dr. Knopf has served as Chair of the Political Communication and the Rhetoric & Public Address interest groups of the Eastern Communication Association, as Vice President and President of the New York State Communication Association, as a member of one of the standing committees of the National Communication Association, and as the faculty sponsor for the SUNY Potsdam Delta Omicron chapter of Lambda Pi Eta. These roles have required group communication, multi-party coordination, scheduling, decision-making, budgeting, assessment practices, outreach and promotion efforts, and knowledge of Parliamentary Procedure. She has been the lead organizer on many events, including seven honor society inductions, a "#StopAAPIHate" forum, and a state-wide conference. Dr. Knopf has been active in matters of college governance as a member of SUNY Cortland's Educational Policy Committee, and as a member of SUNY Potsdam's Faculty Senate, Arts & Sciences Council, and General Education Committee. Through this experience, she understands the channels and procedures, opportunities and limitations, for a college's maintenance, change, and growth in policies and programs. She has been part of accreditation reviews, program reviews, and system revisions, gaining experience in mission development, assessment practices, curriculum changes, policy clarifications, and more.

With service on the departmental curriculum committees in both Communication & Media Studies at SUNY Cortland and in English & Communication at SUNY Potsdam, Dr. Knopf is experienced in reviewing and developing curriculum proposals, student learning outcomes, and assessment protocols at the course and program levels. Serving as Chair of both committees, she helped usher in a variety of initiatives through research, communication, paperwork, and dialogue. She has participated actively in the external review process of her departments at SUNY Cortland and at SUNY Potsdam, and in the Middle States review and accreditation processes at SUNY Cortland, SUNY Potsdam, and the College of St. Rose. Additionally, she has helped to develop, shape, and/or implement assessment initiatives and instruments for the Speech Communication major at SUNY Potsdam, the public speaking course at SUNY Cortland, and the General Education presentation skills requirement at both SUNY Cortland and SUNY Potsdam. Through service to SUNY Potsdam's English & Communication Graduate Committee and the Graduate Affairs Committee, Dr. Knopf gained experience in graduate program development, revision, recruitment, and funding. Both on and off the committees, she was actively involved in program assessment for curricular revisions and for improved recruitment and retention for SUNY Potsdam's MA program in discourse studies. Dr. Knopf has also taught at the graduate level, with a 600-level course at SUNY Potsdam, and has served as a reader on M.A. thesis committees at SUNY Potsdam and a PhD dissertation committee at Bowling Green State University. From Fall 2006 through Spring 2017, Dr. Knopf served as the "oral skills coordinator" at SUNY Potsdam. As a resource person to the General Education Committee, she was actively involved in the review, approval, and assessment of courses fulfilling the SUNY presentation skills General Education requirement and the college's speaking intensive requirement. This decade+ of work gave her experience dealing with college-wide curriculum revisions, SUNY system guidelines, and college discussions around mission and vision. Since Fall 2017, Dr. Knopf serves as the public speaking director and Presentation Skills Committee Chair at SUNY Cortland. In these roles, she is not only active in the review, approval, and assessment of presentation skills courses for General Education, but also in the curricular development and faculty support of public speaking classes in the Communication & Media Studies Department. Through these roles, in addition to teaching speech annually since 2001, Dr. Knopf has kept up-to-date with changes and trends in the field, including initiatives for the basic course and communication-across-the-curriculum at other colleges, particularly those within the 64-campus SUNY system.

Dr. Knopf is committed to supporting and expanding diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the academy. She has served on SUNY Cortland's Antiracism Task Force and the Sexual-Orientation & Gender Identity Expression committee, and the faculty mentoring committee for the Diverse Faculty Fellows, and on SUNY Potsdam's Diversity & Inclusivity Action Coalition. She has taken a number of workshops on advocating for justice, fostering more inclusive classrooms, using universal design in teaching, and mitigating biased hiring practices. She strives to enact good IDEA practices in her classroom and to support students in their fights for equity and justice on campuses. As Vice President of NYSCA, she implemented a Land Acknowledgement as part of the annual conference and the use of pronoun stickers with conference badges and assisted in the creation and implementation of a code of conduct. Dr. Knopf recognizes that such efforts are only a starting place and that her commitment to IDEA is an ongoing work-in-progress that always has room for improvement.

From running focus groups and writing surveys to leading programmatic communication audits, and from creating social media profiles and content to developing group websites, Dr. Knopf has been actively involved in efforts to recruit, and keep, students in programs and initiatives at her campuses. In Fall 2023, Dr. Knopf took up the role of Assistant Dean in the School of Arts & Sciences at SUNY Cortland - a position focused largely in supporting, advancing, and celebrating student success. From 2011 to 2017, Dr. Knopf was the faculty sponsor for the SUNY Potsdam Delta Omicron chapter of the Lambda Pi Eta communication honor society. In this capacity, she annually sent the invitations to eligible students, coordinated their membership fees, and planned and hosted the induction ceremony - managing room reservations and set-up, food requests, speakers and invited guests, the ceremony script, and photos. She also worked with the group to host communication game nights, to create peer tutoring for speech, and to participate in Free Speech Week. From 2013 to 2017, she was also the faculty advisor to the SUNY Potsdam Comic Book Club. She worked with CBC students on doing comics criticism, fundraising, and charity work, as well as helping them coordinate group field trips. Lacking any student groups to work with at SUNY Cortland, she looks for ways to engage classes in some of these experiences that extend the boundaries of the classroom, such as affiliation with Project Censored and the US Media Literacy Week. She has also contributed to discussions, proposals, and outreach efforts for membership drives in her professional associations. As a member or chair of multiple personnel committees, Dr. Knopf has reviewed numerous applications for reappointment (for both tenure-track and non-tenure track appointments), tenure, promotion, and sabbatical leave, and has contributed to revisions of personnel policies and guidelines. Additionally, as a member of the NCA Convention Committee, she has worked with member feedback to foster a responsive and inclusive organization with enhanced student, faculty, and community engagement, with mechanisms in place to measure success of initiatives.

As a reviewer and editorial board member of multiple journals and as a regular reviewer, panel chair, and/or respondent for multiple scholastic organizations, Dr. Knopf understands how much unseen work is needed to maintain the activities of the academic community. Dr. Knopf has been an undergraduate student advisor to 20-40 majors and minors in communication and related programs annually since Fall 2006. She regularly participates in her college communities by representing the department at open houses and other events, processing in convocations and commencements, and attending college celebrations. She also supports campus functions and talks by colleagues and other departments. Additionally, Dr. Knopf has engaged with community service via public scholarship, doing research and transcription for museums and libraries, and working for campus get-out-the-vote initiatives. Actively involved in the National Communication Association and Eastern Communication Association since 2002, Dr. Knopf is a regular participant, chair, respondent, and reviewer for multiple professional associations. She holds lifetime membership in NCA, ECA, the Rhetoric Society of America, and the New York State Communication Association. She has served on committees, interest groups, and/or affiliates for NCA and ECA, as well as for the American Sociological Association. She is a Distinguished Research Fellow of the ECA and Wilson Scholar of the NYSCA. Through the interdisciplinary nature of comics studies, she has established connections with scholars throughout the U.S., and around in the world, in communication, rhetoric, media, literature, composition, library science, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, business, and religion.