Scott Gratson

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Scott Gratson

  • Lew Klein College of Media and Communication

    • Communication and Social Influence

      • Professor of Instruction

      • Chair

Biography

Scott Gratson, director of undergraduate studies in the School of Media and Communication (SMC) and director of the Interdisciplinary Communications program, advises nearly 400 students and coordinates several of SMC’s undergraduate currciular and student affairs initiatives. He teaches in the departments of Communication Studies and Strategic Communication. His courses include Argumentation, Persuasion, Public Speaking, and Campaigns and Movements, and he originated the NYC Study Away program, which employs New York City as the backdrop of the classroom. Gratson also works with Temple’s Trial Advocacy LLM program. He earned his doctorate at the University of Denver while also working as a full-time debate coach and intructor at The Metropolitan State College of Denver.

Combining his love for New York City and history, Gratson volunteered as a docent and helped coordinate the College Outreach Program for the New-York Historical Society (NYHS), where he also served on the Friends of The NYHS Board. He was also archivist for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, the home of the Harvey Milk School and the nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ educational services agency. He is also a mentor with Point Foundation, the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBTQ students of merit. He has presented at dozens of professional conferences, campus and community events concerning aspects of LGBTQ history, identity and mediated depictions. He serves as a reviewer for the LGBTQ studies division of the National Communication Association and been involved with numerous LGBTQ student-inclusion initiatives on several campuses. In past years, Gratson has also served as host to the 2,000-member National Parliamentary Debate Association conferences (2001 and 2002), as well as the National Forensics Association Conference (1997), and has given and supervised well over two dozen regional academic and student-affairs oriented conferences.

Gratson is the recipient of numerous outstanding teaching and service awards, including the 2010 Distinguished Almunus from his alma mater, Eastern Michigan University, and Temple University’s 2010 Faculty Advisor Award. His research interests include advocacy and argumentation, sexual identity studies, and urban and rhetorical analysis. In spring 2011, Gratson returned to graduate school to obtain a second doctoral degree. A proud student in the Art History Department at Temple’s Tyler School of Art, he completed his doctoral coursework and qualifying examinations in 2013. He is currently writing a dissertation on cadaver tombs from the mid-15th to mid-16th centuries in the south of England and Germany.

Courses Taught

Number

Name

Level

CMST 1111

Communication and Public Life

Undergraduate

CMST 2111

Communications Seminar

Undergraduate

CMST 3185

Communication Studies Internship

Undergraduate

COMM 3081

Communications Special Projects

Undergraduate

CSI 1111

Introduction to Public Speaking

Undergraduate

CSI 3100

Special Topics in Communication and Social Influence

Undergraduate

CSI 3702

Communication, Culture and Identity

Undergraduate

CSI 4628

Empowerment of the LGBTQ+ Community through the NYC Pride March: Exploration of a Social Movement

Undergraduate

KLN 3386

Diamond Peer Teachers - Internship II

Undergraduate