With One Semester Under his Belt, Cain Looks forward to Long Career at UNA
Dec. 7, 2016
Bryan Rachal, University Communications
FLORENCE, Ala.– When asked to sum up his first semester in the Department of Communications, Dr. Butler Cain is quick to respond: “It’s been an odd semester for our department; a lot of unusual activity.”
Cain is finishing his first semester as associate professor and new chair of the University of North Alabama Department of Communications; and while the semester may have been interesting as far as emotional ups and downs, Cain said he’s excited about the future.
“Being a department chair, in the few months that I’ve been able to do it, I feel like I like the classroom stuff because that’s home and I feel comfortable there,” said Cain. “But at the same time this is also an opportunity to get to hang out with and learn more from your colleagues. So even though I’m department chair, my attitude is that we’re all working together,” he said.
Cain said he doesn’t see the job as a “You will do this because I’m chair and I tell you to”; he sees it more as a negotiation. And by that token he said he still needs to learn UNA’s culture and what the faculty brings, and what ideas they have about where the department is going and where it’s been.
Cain, however, is no stranger to where the department has been, having worked at UNA while attending the University of Alabama.
“I studied journalism at the University of Alabama, and during that time I had decided that I really enjoyed broadcasting and wanted to pursue that. So when I was a sophomore I was basically knocking on doors, asking to work for free. So WUAL the public radio station hired me on as a student worker.”
Cain noted that WUAL FM would later officially become Alabama Public Radio, and at the time, they broadcasted in Florence on WQPR.
“I got to come up here at least a couple of times to do stories and one of those was on campus here at UNA. So as an Alabama student I got to come up to UNA to cover some stuff and that really started my relationship with UNA,” Cain said.
Cain would go on to graduate from Alabama and after a few stints here and there, he returned to Alabama Public Radio as news director in 1998. One of his first acts as news director, go back to the Shoals and establish a news bureau.
“Which we did and we ended up hiring Dr. Pat Sanders to head that up and that was in 1999. So my professional relationship with UNA dates back to my early days as a student; we really go back a long way.”
Cain said because of his past, he was already quite familiar with UNA when the position for a new department chair opened up, but said he wasn’t seeking the job and didn’t even know it was available.
“I had a couple of folks call and mention to me that the position was open and they thought I should apply. This was during the summer of 2016; so I said sure, I’ll look at it and one thing led to another,” he said.
But leaving his position at West Texas A&M wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. Cain had just finished six years as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication in charge of the journalism sequence and the advisor to the student news organization. He was also coming off an award winning semester.
“The most recent one was the Eternal Flame Award. The Department of Communication gives it out for significant contributions to the program. I was really fortunate to be named and it was great.”
Cain was one of two people awarded with the honor. But just because he’s coming off an award doesn’t mean he plans on resting on his laurels. His new plan for the department is the removal of silos. Cain said that when he was an undergrad, if someone was a journalism major, they studied journalism. If they were a broadcast major, they studied that and those were the specific careers people prepped for.
“Now, you can’t do that because you have to know how to do everything,” he said. “You might want to go work for newspapers, but you still need to know how to take great photos and do some audio and video. So academically we’re trying to make sure our students are coming out of here with a really well-rounded education. We’re really trying to prepare them to do multiple things because their careers may change,” Cain said.
Cain said the goal is make sure students have the skills and ability to teach themselves new things.
“The idea is we want to give our students the opportunities to do things,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about a Center for Digital Media production. This production house would basically give students the ability to do podcasts, video, audio. To learn the skills that they would learn even though we don’t have a live TV station or radio station.”
And that’s just one of his ideas. Cain said another area that’s growing in the department is the Public Relations program. He said they’re working to make sure they have enough resources to meet the need and to prepare the students for life after graduation. They’re currently searching for a new faculty member to teach in that area. Film may be the next area to hire; Cain said that program consists of 80 current majors and is growing as well.
All in all, Cain has inherited a program poised for something special. And while the department and job are great, Cain said it’s the people in the area that have really sealed the deal.
“The people and students are fantastic and without fail, one of the things that I hear from other people on campus is how much they love this place. So, for lack of a better term, I like the vibe,” he said.