Donald McKenna, Ph.D

Professor Emeritus of Communication
College of Human Development Culture and Media

Don McKenna has been at Seton Hall as a student, adjunct and full-time faculty member since 1962, except for one year. He enrolled as a freshman in the first class of the Humanities Honors program. While a student, he was a board member of WSOU, house manager of the Theatre-in-the-Round, Editor-in-Chief of The Setonian and president of the local communication arts service fraternity, Pi Beta Delta. Dr. McKenna accepted a job as editor of a local weekly newspaper and ran their newspaper job printing plant while teaching as an adjunct. He worked as layout editor of The Record in Hackensack before pursuing his MA in Communication from Temple. He became a full-time faculty member in the Department of Communication Arts in 1970. Dr. McKenna served as chair of the department for 13 years, as well as chair of the College faculty, the College Educational Policy Committee, the Faculty Senate APCC, the search committee for the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the committee to build the new WSOU. Dr. McKenna helped develop the journalism curriculum, the graphics curriculum with Dr. Ken Hoffman, the Public Relations curriculum with Dr. Kate Rennie and two graduate programs with Dr. Pat Kuchon. Dr McKenna has received the University’s McQuaid Medal and the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association Many Are One Award while serving as chair of the college alumni association. In 2016, the College of Communication and the Arts honored Dr. McKenna with a Distinguished Alumnus award.