PhD Grad Tori Bertram Pursues Passion in Teaching Organizational Communication
“I showed up the first day to class knowing nothing about organizational communication and I got goosebumps. I was totally hooked,” said Tori Bertram as she recounted how she got where she is today, a graduate of the College of Communication and Information PhD program.
Though Bertram minored in mass communication, her major was in creative writing, and she didn’t know what she wanted to do. Someone suggested she pursue a master’s in organizational communication, and that’s when she got hooked and decided to take her education all the way to a doctoral degree.
“I couldn’t get enough. I didn’t know what it meant to have a PhD or to be a professor, I just knew organizational communication was the coolest thing,” she said.
She applied to the CCI PhD program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, again on someone’s recommendation. CCI alumnus Marcie Hinton told Bertram that she loved her experience at UT, and Bertram should consider applying there. And, once again, a recommendation ended up being the perfect fit for Bertram.
“I applied and they let me in and that’s where the journey began. I showed up and sat down in a classroom with a lot of really impressive PhD students and professors and I couldn’t get enough. Any project I could have a hand in, I did, and I’ve been able to work with a lot of professors,” she said.
Bertram found a lot of support in her advisors, School of Communication Studies Professor Joan Rentsch and Associate Professor Emily Paskewtiz, both of whom she described as “brilliant.” The trio even affectionately made an acronym out of their first names: JET.
“The relationships I have developed at UT are by far the best part; getting to know the faculty and getting to plug in with them and the other cohort members, and with the cohorts that came behind me—that was the best part, to be with other people who are passionate about what you’re passionate about,” she said.
Though she officially graduates this spring, Bertram had no remaining courses to take in the spring and defended her dissertation in December 2023. She also began working in 2023 as an assistant professor at James Madison University teaching organizational communication.
Her dissertation research explores how new employees are onboarded and what memorable messages impact them when they meet new coworkers. She had decided work relationships would be a focus for her after realizing people spend more time with their coworkers than they do with anyone else.
“I was shocked that we spend more time with people we don’t choose than those we do choose and that can have huge implications on quality of life. So, I study workplace relationships to see how to improve them,” she said.
Her work showed that organizations can spend a lot of time perfecting onboarding training and all that training can quickly be undone or changed by people in the workplace, as what those people do and say tend to have more influence on a new coworker than trainings. She explored how organizations could take advantage of that relationship to better onboard new employees.
“We spend so much time crafting the perfect onboarding training to teach the most efficient way to do a task, but if we get people plugged in with others who can help and support them, they’ll learn more organically and be healthier and happier,” Bertram explained.
As part of her dissertation research, she created and validated a “memorable messages scale” and she is currently working through relationship development variables to see if it is possible to predict certain things in a relationship.
Bertram has been thriving in her new faculty role. James Madison University offers an organizational communication concentration, and she teaches classes on the subject, including theory and skill-based classes. In addition to that, she gets to work on research with undergraduate students, which is something she’s been thoroughly enjoying.
“I get to be my best self and live my best life,” she said.
PhD Grad Tori Bertram Pursues Passion in Teaching Organizational Communication written by Hillary Tune and originally published on the College of Communication & Information site.