Skip to main content

Holly Lawrence

Assistant Dean, Office of Career Success & Senior Lecturer II

Business Communication Program

Education

PhD, University of Massachusetts, 2007
BA, George Mason University, 1990

Professional Experience

Account Manager, Titanium, inc., 2000-2001
Marketing Director, MassLive, 1998-2000
Instructor, Budapest University of Economics, 1990-1992

Academic Appointments

Assistant Dean, Office of Career Success, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2020-Present
Director, Business Communication Program, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008-2020
Assistant Director, Business Communication Program, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2003-2008
Lecturer, Business Communication Program, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2001-2003

Recent Honors / Awards

College Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2012-2013

Research Interests

Personal and Reflective Writing Practices
Life Design
Emerging Trends in Business Communication

Teaching Interests

Masters
  • Career and Professional Development
  • Life Design
Undergraduate
  • Business and Professional Communication
  • Career and Professional Development
  • Life Design

Selected Presentations

“Uncommon: Teaching Awareness (Self, Critical, Rhetorical, and Social) through Writing and Communication in Business Colleges,” with Matthew Gilchrist, Ryan Sheets, and Brian Hentz, Conference on College Composition and Communication, Virtual, March 2020.
“Envisioning, Implementing, and Delivering Innovation,” with Gail Cruise and Fadia Nordttveit, Association for Business Communication Annual Conference, Detroit, Michigan, October 2019.
“Trends, Changes, and Predictions: The Student Job Search Experience,” Association for Business Communication Annual Conference, Miami, Florida, October 2018.
“Teaching a Career and Professional Development Course as an Essential Step in Business Communication Education,” with Michael Schurter, Association for Business Communication Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland, October 2017.

Selected Publications

Lawrence, H. (2019). Putting the personal in everyday business communications. In Getchell, K. & Lentz, P. (Eds), Rhetoric and praxis in business communication. New York: NY, Routledge.

Bowse, R. & Lawrence, H. (June 2016). The ways, hows and lessons learned from our 780-person writing class. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 79(1), 1-22.

Lawrence, H. "Personal, Reflective Writing: A Pedagogical Strategy for Teaching Business Students to Write" (June 2013). Business Communication Quarterly 76:2, p.192-206.