Rate My Professor Carol Mills

Dr. Carol Bishop Mills serves as Professor and Director of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies within Florida Atlantic University's Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. A distinguished scholar in Communications, she holds a Ph.D. in Communication Theory from Purdue University in 2001, an M.A. in Health Communication from Emerson College, and a B.S. in Organizational Communication and English from the University of Miami. Her academic career includes prior service as an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama from 2005 to 2021, before assuming her current roles at FAU in 2019. Dr. Mills also co-directs the Political Communication and Public Opinion Lab, promoting collaborative research across communication disciplines.

As a relational communication scholar, Dr. Mills examines communication at the nexus of the dark side and light side of interpersonal dynamics, including teasing for affection or harm, organizational bullying, insincere relationships such as frenemies, responses to sexual harassment, communication accommodation in law enforcement-suspect encounters, and the role of humor orientation in leadership amid bullying contexts. Her work applies research findings to improve communication practices and involves collaboration with faculty in Communication Studies, Journalism, and Film, Video and New Media. Key publications include Mills, C.B., Yu, P., & Mongeau, P. (in press). Frenemies: Acting like friends but feeling like enemies. Western Journal of Communication; Goodboy, A.K., Martin, M.M., Mills, C.B., & Clark, C.V. (2022). Workplace Bullying in Academia: A Conditional Process Model. Management Communication Quarterly; Mills, C.B., Kwon, A.C., & Brown, K.A. (2021). Examining the COMM in COMMunity Policing: Communication Accommodation, Perception, and Trust in Law Enforcement-Suspect Encounters. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 36(2), 333-341; Mills, C.B., & Scudder, J.N. (2020). He said, she said: the effectiveness and outcomes of responses to sexual harassment. International Journal of Business Communication; Mills, C.B., Keller, M., Chilcutt, A., & Nelson, M.D. (2018). No laughing matter: workplace bullying, humor orientation, and leadership styles. Workplace Health & Safety; and Mills, C.B. (2016). Child’s Play or Risky Business? The development of teasing functions and relational implications in school-aged children. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35, 287–306. She teaches courses such as COM 2053 Introduction to Communication and Civic Life, SPC 2300 Interpersonal Communication, and SPC 3425 Small Group Processes.