Communication and Media Faculty

Philip A. Thompsen, Ph.D. holds the rank of Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication and Media. Dr. Thompsen is a scholar of communication media and technology, with a specific teaching focus on broadcast performance. He is the author of the textbook On Air: Effective Announcing (Cognella, 2019).

The most enduring theme of Dr. Thompsen's academic career was his commitment to student media.  During his time at West Chester University, he advised all three of the student media organizations on campus, sometimes advising more than one simultaneously.  He first served as faculty advisor to WCUR-FM, our campus radio station, from 1997 to 2007.  It was during this time that Dr. Thompsen saw the station make the switch from AM to FM, successfully achieving an FM broadcasting license in 1999, and launching an online stream of the station's programming in 2001. From 2003 to 2016, Dr. Thompsen served as faculty advisor to the campus newspaper, The Quad.  Dr. Thompsen returned to WCUR in 2018, where he served as faculty advisor until his retirement in 2024. He also twice served as advisor to WCU-TV, our campus television channel (from 2000 to 2003 and from 2013 to 2015), and helped students launch the campus news program WCU Weekly. From 2014 to 2024, Dr. Thompsen worked with his students to produce the Weather Minute, a daily video that was distributed to digital signs across campus, the local Verizon Fios cable television system and a variety of social media platforms.

Dr. Thompsen's scholarship has been published in a variety of formats, including book chapters, journal articles, conference proceedings, convention papers, panel presentations and various online resources. Scholarly journals that have published his articles include The Electronic Journal of Communication, Computers in Human Behavior, CALICO Journal, Et Cetera: A Review of General Semantics, Feedback and The Pennsylvania Communication Annual.  He presented much of his scholarly work at the annual convention of the Broadcast Education Association, an international organization of teachers and scholars of broadcasting and electronic media. He has held faculty fellowships at C-SPAN in Washington, DC, The Apple Teacher Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, The Time Warner Media Lab in New York City, KYW-TV and KYW-AM in Philadelphia, PA. 

Prior to West Chester University, Dr. Thompsen taught at the University of Utah, William Jewell College, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Arizona State University, and the Ron Baile School of Broadcasting. He holds a B.S. from Northern Arizona University, an M.S. from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. Before his academic career, Dr. Thompsen worked as a professional broadcast announcer, holding on-air positions at over a dozen radio stations from 1976 to 1984.

Dr. Thompsen joined the faculty of West Chester University in 1997, and was awarded emeritus status upon his retirement in 2024.