Before each semester, Ed Carter sits in his office and flips through course notes and syllabi from when he was a student. Now the director of the School of Communications, Carter still thinks about one of his influential professors and how he approached teaching.
Ed Carter, Director, BYU School of Communications. Photography by: Mark A. Philbrick/BYU
He considers the students he’ll teach and the skills they’ll learn. Carter wants to help students, like public relations graduate, Shelbi Anderson, expand their skills and their thinking much in the same way Professor Dallas Burnett did for Carter.
Burnett Teaches Carter
Carter came to BYU intending to pursue journalism. As a freshman, he took a basic news writing class, which offered extra credit if their final project was printed in BYU’s school newspaper, the Daily Universe. He discovered a plan to issue fines to students who had food in the school library. Not only was Carter’s story published, it sat in the coveted position above the fold on the front page.
Dallas Burnet, former BYU professor
As Carter pursued his journalism degree, he enrolled in the required Communications Law class, taught by Professor Dallas Burnett.
When Carter attended Burnett’s class, he noticed that Burnett was passionate not only about teaching the course, but also in getting to know his students.
“It felt like even though I was in a class of 70 people, he knew me,” Carter remembers.
That sense of connection was not accidental. Now a professor emeritus, Burnett has long been associated with the College of Fine Arts and Communications He decided early in his teaching career, to get to know his students each semester.
“It is so easy to help a student if you are willing to simply see students as human beings who have needs and concerns,” Burnett states. “When I called on a student, I could call on them by name. When you do that, they know they are something more than a name on the roll.”
Burnett is modest in recounting the impact he had on the thousands of BYU students he taught but he maintains that creating a good relationship with students means they are more likely to listen.
Carter listened so well that his love of journalism expanded into a desire for a law degree. He attributes his success in law school to the preparation the journalism program gave him.
“It was in Burnett’s class that I learned how writing skills could be transferable to other areas,” Carter says. “I think journalism is the best preparation for law school because of all the writing that is required.”
Carter Teaches Anderson
Carter had accepted a position at a law firm when BYU’s Communications Department Chair Michael Perkins tragically passed away. Carter was offered and accepted the position to teach communications law.
As a professor, Carter now mentors the next generation of students. In the summer of 2014, Carter was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach at the Universidad Mayor in Chile. He wanted to bring along BYU students to work on a joint project with some of the Chilean students.
BYU students document the student movement in Santiago, Chile. From left to right, Ricardo Quintana, Shelbi Anderson, Jared Jakins and Jeff Wade. Photo by Jeff Sheets.
“We applied for a grant through the Laycock Center, which encourages interdisciplinary collaboration,” Carter says. “You can do a better project when you cover more disciplines.”
Carter selected four students from the Laycock Center, including Shelbi Anderson. Their specialties included film, graphic design and public relations. With Carter, they decided to focus their work on education reform, a polarizing local issue. Chilean students, in crowds of 50,000 people were protesting the current higher education system.
Anderson and the students gained admittance to a high school that had been taken over by the local students in protest of those who were unable to obtain a higher education due to financial constraints.
“It looked like Neverland, beds everywhere and boys skateboarding inside,” Anderson remembers, referencing the 1991 film Hook. “But they were surprisingly mature. They really believed in what they were doing. They had leadership skills. They were very professional on-camera.”
Students from BYU’s Department of Fine Arts and Communications interview a high school student outside student-occupied Instituto Nacional. Photo by Jeff Sheets.
Anderson says she received real-world training and experience because of Carter’s mentorship. She was able to put into practice the strategies she learned in communications classes.
“I was a journalist out there,” she says. “This was being filmed, and I was thinking on my feet and in another language. I’m so grateful to and the Laycock donors who made it possible.”
Because of their impact, the Universidad Mayor hopes to make Carter’s summer teaching and research trip an annual collaboration.
Anderson, along with others from the College of Fine Arts and Communication used the footage they took in Chile to create a multi-media article. This article placed them as finalists in The Society of Professional Journalists 2014 Mark of Excellence Awards, a ceremony that recognizes the best of collegiate journalism. Anderson credits her success to the skills and resources she acquired at BYU.
Shelbi Jia Anderson, BYU Comms Alumna. Photo by Nathalie Van Empel.
“There were so many supportive faculty members that encouraged me to go forward with the project,” Anderson says. “I couldn’t have done it without them believing in my abilities.”
Today Anderson works as a Senior Project Manager and Junior Account Executive at inWhatLanguage, in Salt Lake City.
A Legacy of Learning
Carter firmly believes in continuing education for both students and faculty and recently completed his second postgraduate law degree, this time in international human rights law from Oxford University.
“As teachers, we need to be lifelong learners,” Carter says. “I learned that from my mentors.”
Carter is instilling a love of learning in students like Anderson, whether it is in the classroom or on field trips abroad. He credits his motivation to succeed to Burnett who, all those years ago, took an interest in Carter.
He may be retired now, but Burnett still offers sound advice to students.
“Sit up at the front in a classroom,” he says. “Half of the failures wouldn’t exist if they just sat in the front of the class. Be willing, and make it a point, to talk to your teacher. Make yourself known. Find a reason—I don’t care how big—to meet the teacher.”
Burnett and Carter are a testament to a willingness to help, a legacy that will hopefully carry on through generations and throughout the world.