Rate My Professor Don Waisanen

Don Waisanen is a Professor of Strategic and Leadership Communication in the Communications area at Baruch College's Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, City University of New York. He earned a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California and a B.A. from Westmont College. Waisanen teaches courses and workshops in public communication, executive speech training, communication strategy, storytelling, conflict and negotiation, and leadership and improvisation. He also serves as an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University's School of Professional Studies and an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Previously engaged in broadcast journalism and speechwriting, he founded Communication Upward to offer professional development workshops, coaching, and facilitation for retreats and meetings. Waisanen holds board positions with the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation and the CMM Institute.

His research examines how communication promotes or hinders citizens' voices, spanning leadership communication, strategic communication, rhetoric, political communication, civic discourse, participatory budgeting, and public health communication. Waisanen has authored several books, including Improv for Democracy: How to Bridge Differences and Develop the Communication and Leadership Skills Our World Needs (State University of New York Press, 2021), Leadership Standpoints: A Practical Framework for the Next Generation of Nonprofit Leaders (Cambridge University Press, 2021), States of Confusion: How Our Voter ID Laws Fail Democracy and What to Do About It (New York University Press, 2023, with S. Jarvis and N. Gordon), Real Money, Real Power? The Challenges with Participatory Budgeting in New York City (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, with D. Williams), Immigration and Strategic Public Health Communication: Lessons from the Transnational Seguro Popular Project (Routledge, 2019, with R.C. Smith and G.Y. Barbosa), Political Conversion: Personal Transformation as Strategic Public Communication (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and Innovation Soup: A Recipe for Organizational Success (Business Expert Press, 2023, with S. Puligadda). He has produced over 45 scholarly publications, such as A Citizen's Guides to Democracy Inaction: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Comic Rhetorical Criticism (2009). Among his honors are Baruch College Presidential Excellence Awards for Distinguished Teaching, Distinguished Scholarship, and Distinguished Faculty Service, the Con Edison Social and Behavioral Research Award (2022), and a $50,000 grant from Public Agenda's Democracy Renewal Project (2024).