Bruce Pinkleton

Bruce Pinkleton is the dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. He joined the faculty of what was then the Murrow School of Communication as an assistant professor in 1993, and earned tenure and early promotion to full professor at WSU.

Dr. Pinkleton’s research interests focus on health promotion, media literacy and public affairs decision making in the digital era. His research has been funded by the National Institutes for Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, ABMRF/The Foundation for Alcohol Research, the Washington State Department of Health and other organizations. His work has been published in tier-one journals in communication, health communication and public health.

As dean, Dr. Pinkleton has established key areas of strategic emphasis for the Murrow College. These areas of emphasis—fostering student success, building collaborative partnerships, advancing excellence in research and strengthening the internal foundation of the Murrow College—have positioned the College to maximize its contributions to WSU’s Drive to 25.

In terms of student success, Dr. Pinkleton has enhanced the career-services programs available to students resulting in professional mentoring, career coaching and seminars teaching job-seeking skills to students. He also has initiated the development of the Murrow Center for Student Success. Under his leadership, Murrow College has enrolled a high proportion of first-generation students, expanded international learning opportunities, and established and/or grown successful graduate and undergraduate programs in Everett, Vancouver and on WSU’s Global Campus. In addition, Dr. Pinkleton has fostered a variety of collaborative initiatives to help provide opportunities for Murrow College students to work with students from other colleges on applied projects.

Dr. Pinkleton also has facilitated further development of the College’s cutting-edge research and learning facilities, such as the Murrow Innovation Community (a digital media lab) and a virtual-reality laboratory. Dr. Pinkleton’s strategies to foster productive research collaborations have resulted in multiple NIH-funded grants and an endowment to support collaborative, health-communication research with health-science faculty members at WSU Spokane. These initiatives build on the College’s established research reputation. The Communication Institute for Online Scholarship ranks the Murrow College as a top 10 research program in 21 of 99 research areas, while the NSF Higher Education Research and Development report ranks the Murrow College in the top 2% of communication programs for higher education research and development expenditures.

Dr. Pinkleton earned an undergraduate degree in journalism from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and graduate degrees in public relations and communication/mass media from Michigan State University.