Dale Cressman is a a former associate professor in BYU’s School of Communications. He taught media history, historical research methods, and journalism. He previously served as Associate Director for Student Learning, and as Associate Chair of the Communications Department from 2010 until 2015, overseeing undergraduate curriculum course scheduling, admissions, and assessment. He was named Associate Director in 2015, when the department became the School of Communications. Before coming to BYU in 1993, Dr. Cressman was an assistant professor and television news director at Lyndon State College (now Northern Vermont University); and an assistant teaching professor at BYU and news director of KBYU-TV and KBYU-FM. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Utah in 2003. Before returning to BYU in 2000, he taught at Utah State University for three years.
Dr. Cressman has worked as a television news producer in South Bend, Indiana; as an executive producer in Waco, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah; as a managing editor in Green Bay, Wisconsin; and as a line-up editor at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1995, he produced the Emmy Award winning documentary “Russia: Hidden Memory.” He was a chief liaison for the Host Broadcaster during the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games. In 2008, he produced BYUtv’s worldwide coverage of President Hinckley’s funeral.
Dr. Cressman serves on editorial boards for three academic journals and has published articles in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, American Journalism, and Journalism History, among others. In 2018, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications awarded him its inaugural Michael S. Sweeney Award for the best article of the year published in Journalism History. In 2009, his research on the history of Times Square was highlighted in the Columbia Journalism Review.
Dr. Cressman is Vice President of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and historian of the American Journalism Historians Association. He’s also served as a divisional chair for the Broadcast Education Association and was chair of the organization’s 2012 convention.
Born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Dr. Cressman came to the United States as a student athlete, recruited by the University of Kentucky and Brigham Young. He lettered in swimming at BYU in 1979-80 and 1980-81. He continues to enjoy swimming and cycling. He is married to Rebecca Cressman, a Salt Lake City broadcaster. They have three adult sons, three daughters-in-law, a granddaughter, a Goldendoodle and a mini Labradoodle.