Janette Kenner Muir

Janette Kenner Muir is the faculty representative to the Board of Visitors' Committee on University Life. She has been at George Mason University since 1989, as a member of New Century College, the Communication Department, and as an affiliate of the Department of Women's Studies and the Program for Higher Education. Her academic life is focused on political communication, civic engagement and the study of the presidency, and effective interdisciplinary teaching. Dr. Muir also provides workshops and speeches on gender communication and is currently working on a book in this area.

Muir is a C-SPAN Fellow, past president of the Eastern Communication Association (ECA), and current editor of Communication Quarterly. She served as associate dean for New Century College for six years, and she has participated on several university and college committees, most recently the transitional Governance Committee for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS). She has been elected to serve on the Faculty Senate (2007-2010) and the CHSS curriculum committee (2007-2008).

Committed to teaching effectiveness issues, Muir has received a Mason Teaching Excellence Award, and she continues to find ways to engage students in active learning. Her courses tend to be highly interactive -- from taking students to New Hampshire to follow presidential candidate campaigns, to involving them in convention planning for major conferences, to requiring students to do volunteer work out in their communities. She also has an interest in lifelong learning – presenting talks for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason on topics such as the presidential campaign, political spouses, and community engagement, and working with middle school students on leadership issues.

Muir earned a masters in communication at Wake Forest University and has a PhD from the University of Massachusetts in rhetoric and communication, with specific focus on presidential campaigning. She is actively involved in her community with the Bull Run Unitarian Universalists. She lives in Manassas, Virginia, with her husband, Star Muir, and her two children, Caitlin and Alex.