The Great Communicator

For the past 18 years, Stacey Peterson has been teaching college students how to effectively communicate. Peterson SCILS'97, GSNB'02, who teaches interpersonal communication, business and professional communication, and communication theory, has seen first-hand how communication has evolved to be more than just media and public relations.

Effective communication is one of the top skills that many companies look for in their employees, says Peterson, a professor at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland. Beyond writing and speaking well, effective communication enhances problem solving, empathy, critical thinking, and working well with others.

After receiving her bachelor's degree in Magazine Journalism from Syracuse University and working at a couple of local newspapers, Peterson came to Rutgers for her master's degree and doctorate in communications. "The more classes I took, the more interactions I had with my professors, the more conversations I had with my classmates, the more I knew that this was exactly where I wanted to be," she says. That's how Peterson decided to become an educator.

Now she wants to help graduate students at Rutgers pursue their dreams without struggling to make ends meet and has remembered Rutgers in her will with this intent in mind. "The gift plan comes from wanting to help someone else out there who's in a transitional place in their life," she says. "I was thinking someone who's like me—a person of color, a woman—who has come back to school and doesn't know exactly what she wants to do." If these graduate students are anything like her, Peterson knows that they'll appreciate a little help.