Dr. Frank Rybicki, Francis Marion University’s newest Mass Communication instructor has been hired on to teach courses within the program in the upcoming academic year.
Rybicki, who specializes in broadcast and advanced production, is also familiar with the subject of public relations. Additionally, he will teach Mass Communication 110, an introductory course.
Rybicki obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Southern California University. He then earned a Master’s degree from California State University. Traveling to the East coast, he received his doctorate degree in Pennsylvania, at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University.
According to Rybicki, the choice to pursue a career in production arose from his interests in the advances of technology and video-making. Before he began his decade-long career in higher education, he did work in both radio and television broadcasting.
As a promotion producer at California’s KABC radio, an AM station in Los Angeles reporting on topics such as regional, national, and sports news, he oversaw a portion of the station’s public relations program. Rybicki was responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating publicity policies at KABC.
Rybicki says he has considered the development of an internet radio station for the University. According to Rybicki, the station would focus on different topics of discussion, in addition to creating jobs for students and faculty advisors.
Rybicki’s experience has not been contained to broadcast only. He has also served as a research analyst for the National Association of Television Programming Executives, a television company responsible for the creation, development, and distribution of programming. As an analyst, he reviewed data for potential investments in the area of syndication, the process in which previously recorded episodes of television shows are aired for replay.
Around the mid-2000s, he ventured into movie production. The films, which he entered into festivals, focused on social issues, such as the Holocaust and middle 20th century labor crises. His pieces also displayed landmark periods in entertainment like Vaudeville. Partial to historical genres, Rybicki is now actively working on a documentary about the Civil War.
In 2005, while teaching at Pennsylvania’s Edinboro University, Rybicki encouraged his students to submit their “dramatic” anti-smoking short film into a video contest sponsored by MSNBC. The students placed as finalists in the viewer-voted competition. Because of the success of the project, he hopes to spark similar interests in FMU students, should the opportunity arise.
According to Rybicki, these opportunities are important. As an educator, he says he wishes to impart certain values on the students around him.
“I want my students to be good people who treat others well,” Rybicki said. “No one ever leaves college the same way they arrived.”