Dr. Richard L. Cravatts Named as Director of the Communications Management Program at Simmons College

Boston, MA, June 14, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, a veteran marketing communications professional and an academic leader with extensive experience in organizational marketing and program development, has been named the new Director of Simmons College’s innovative program in Communications Management, a master’s degree program within Simmons’ School of Management.

The appointment was announced to the Simmons community today by Deborah Marlino, Interim Dean of the School of Management.

“We are incredibly fortunate to find someone with Richard’s background, which is the perfect combination of deep experience and relationships in the private sector in the field of communications, marketing, and publishing, and an academic background in which he has both taught and designed teaching programs to train professionals in the communications industry,” said Dean Marlino. “The Communications Management program is poised for significant growth in the coming years, and we’re confident that Richard’s wealth of experience gives him the vision and skills needed to lead our program forward, building on the incredible successes the program has experienced under the guidance of Joan Abrams, the retiring director.”

The core curriculum of Simmons’ Communications Management program emphasizes four areas within communications that provide students a foundation in managerial communications: intercultural communication, communications technology, communicating financial aspects of business, and strategic communication. In addition to providing communications students with an advanced, managerial degree, the MCM program offers professionals from various educational backgrounds the opportunity to develop beneficial communications skills for a variety of fields.

The creator and founding director of Boston University's Program in Publishing & Digital Media at BU’s Center for Professional Education, Dr. Cravatts has taught advertising, integrated marketing communications, consumer behavior, opinion writing, magazine publishing, editing, public relations, technical writing, account planning, entrepreneurial marketing, and e-commerce strategy at Simmons College, Boston University, Babson College, Tufts University, UMass/ Boston, Suffolk University, Wentworth Institute, Emerson College, Northeastern University, and Emmanuel College.

For over 26 years Cravatts was publisher of the Boston Classical Network, a firm which created playbills to enhance the marketing of the region's major performing arts organizations. He was the founding editor of Metrowest Magazine and Wellesley Weston Magazine, and associate publisher and editor in chief of Orlando’s Best and the Greater Boston Restaurant & Wine Review. He was also the art director and travel editor of Palm Beach Illustrated, as well as the Boston dining correspondent for East/West Network, Inc., publishers of in-flight magazines for the nation’s leading airlines.

From 1976-78, Dr. Cravatts was the first director of publications at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University at a time when the School was undergoing dramatic growth and in the midst of a significant capital campaign, and was the founding editor of the School’s magazine and portfolio of marketing publications; he also later served in a similar capacity as director of public relations at Harvard’s School of Public Health.

Cravatts has published over 350 articles, op-ed pieces, columns, and chapters in books on campus anti-Semitism, campus free speech, terrorism, Constitutional law, Middle East politics, real estate, and social policy, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s War Against Israel & Jews. He is also a frequent guest on radio programs and lectures nationally on the topic of higher education and the Middle East.

Cravatts is a board member and chair of the Greater Boston chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, an organization with more than 50,000 academic members on more than 3500 campuses worldwide, and also a member of WGHB Boston’s Executive Council.

Cravatts, who will also hold the designation of Professor of Practice in the School of Management, will assume the role as Director on July 1.

###

About the Simmons School of Management
The Simmons School of Management is the only business school in the world designed specifically to educate women for power and principled leadership that is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The program is featured in The Princeton Review's "The Best 301 Business Schools" 2010 edition and ranked the #1 MBA program in the U.S. with the "greatest opportunities for women." Simmons School of Management is the only Boston-based MBA program to rank in this category on the 2011 list.

Simmons College is a nationally recognized private university located in the heart of Boston. It offers an undergraduate education for women, and renowned coeducational graduate programs in health sciences, education, liberal arts, social work, library and information science, and communications management, as well as the nation's first MBA program designed specifically for women. Follow us on Twitter @SimmonsCollege

In August, Cathy E. Minehan, former President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, will become the School of Management’s new Dean.