J. Leland Daniel

Jack L. Daniel is Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. He conducts research and teaches courses related to African American Rhetoric and African Americans and the Mass Media.

Dr. Daniel began at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and then earned his BS degree in psychology at the Pittsburgh campus in 1963 and the MA and PhD degrees in communication at the Pittsburgh campus in 1965 and 1968, respectively. He was an American Council on Education Fellow at Stanford University in 1973-74 and is a 1986 alumnus of Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management. Daniel served as Pitt vice provost for undergraduate studies and dean of students from September 2002 to December 2005. In his administrative role, Daniel served as chair of the Enrollment Management Steering Committee, coordinating several campus wide activities related to student recruitment, retention, satisfaction, graduation, and placement.

He also was responsible for new undergraduate academic programs and worked with the Chancellor’s Diversity Task Force and Equipoise on issues relating to diversity. At Pitt since 1968, Daniel has served as chair of the Department of Black Studies, vice provost for academic affairs, and interim dean of the College of General Studies. An active member of the National Communication Association (NCA), Daniel served as chair of NCA’s Finance Committee. He also served as secretary, vice president, and president of NCA’s Black Caucus. Among Daniel’s honors and recognitions are NCA’s Spotlight Program on the Contributions of Jack L. Daniel in 1995, NCA’s Presidential Award for Contribution to the Black Caucus in 1997, and the Eastern Communication Association Special Focus Program on the Scholarship of Jack L. Daniel in 2006. Black Pioneers in Communication Research (Sage Publications, 2006) by Ronald Jackson includes a chapter on Daniel as cofounder of NCA’s Black Caucus and his pioneering work in communication research. In 2001, Daniel was the commencement speaker at the University of Durban- Westville, South Africa.

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