Faculty Members
Elaine L. Wagner
Professor - Department of Advertising
M.A.J.C.,
University of Texas at Austin
Office: 2080 Weimer
Phone: (352) 392-0453
E-mail:
Research area
Creative activities include graphic design projects. Research topics include the graphic arts and print production, teaching with mastery-based learning techniques, and accomodations for students with learning disabilities.
Biography
Wagner teaches basic and advanced classes in advertising graphics, design and creative advertising.
Wagner was born in Berwyn, Illinois, but grew up in Austin, Texas, and graduated from McCallum High School. When she started college at Texas A&I University (unfortunately now renamed Texas A&M at Kingsville), she began as an "undetermined" major; she changed to English Lit.; and then became a history major before settling in to study music as a vocal performance major.
Since Wagner is a Longhorn at heart, she transferred to The University of Texas at Austin to continue her music education; however, she decided to change her major again, and finally received a B.F.A. in art history. She continued at UT and completed a B.A. in Art (painting and design) before starting work as a production artist at Tracor Publications in Austin. Some years later, she left Tracor to freelance design and production-and to start post-baccalaureate studies in journalism at UT. She went on to complete an M.A. in journalism.
After receiving her graduate degree, she began an academic career at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. She taught graphics, publication design, magazine editing and advertising copy and layout. Three years later she moved to the University of Texas at Arlington to become Advertising Manager and Director of Creative Services for Student Publications.
In 1982 Wagner arrived at the University of Florida to strengthen the advertising design and graphics classes. In 1986 she received the "Nissan Professor of the Year" award. She was awarded "Teacher of the Year" honors from the College of Journalism and Communications in 1986 and 1991; and in 1991 she was given a university-wide teaching award from the University of Florida. In 1994 she received "National Honors" from the Newspaper Association of America Foundation.
Since beginning her teaching career, Wagner's students have received 15 first-place national awards in design and advertising competitions; placed second or third a total of 24 times; were named finalists in the One Show Student Competition once, and had 21 national and regional honorable mention awards. Also, they have won numerous Gold and Silver awards in the Gainesville Ad Federation Student Addy Competition. Her students' work has been published in issues of The Graduate magazine in 1981, 1985 and 1986. It has been displayed on the covers of Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) convention programs in San Antonio (1987), Portland (1988), Kansas City (1993), Atlanta (1994), Washington D.C. (1995), and Baltimore (1998). Copies of her students' work has been published by the Newspaper Association of America numerous times (1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993).
After redesigning her graphics and production classes to "mastery-based learning" (with the help of Andrea Smith Wilkinson) in 1989, Wagner wrote articles about her experiences, and has been invited to present numerous workshops and presentations on mastery learning techniques.
She is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), The One Club for Art And Copy in NY, The American Academy of Advertising (AAA), and AEJMC. She served as national secretary for the Advertising Division of AEJMC from 1987 to 1994. In 1998 she redesigned the Ad Division's Journal of Advertising Education and has served as production manager for that scholarly journal since 2004.
She received the College service award in 1988; the AEJMC Advertising Division Special Service Award in 1994; and a special award for service from the College of Journalism and Communication in 2000.
Honors for her own design work include several Gold and Silver Addy Awards; also, during 2004, she received awards from Creativity 33 and Step Inside Design.
And at this point, Wagner still doesn't know what she wants to do when she grows up.
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