Tom Dooley Headshot

Tom Dooley

Senior Lecturer

School of Communication
College of Liberal Arts
Program Director, Journalism Option, Communication BS

585-475-4034
Office Location

Tom Dooley

Senior Lecturer

School of Communication
College of Liberal Arts
Program Director, Journalism Option, Communication BS

Bio

Thomas Dooley is a lecturer in the School of Communication at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a two-time Emmy award-winning multiplatform producer with expertise in digital content strategy, video production, photojournalism and long-form documentary.  He is currently exploring immersive storytelling in journalism.


His career has taken him across five continents always in pursuit of compelling stories. During his career he has been involved with nearly every level of production - behind the camera as a videographer, behind the computer as an editor, and supervising colleagues as a producer. 


As a Producer for PBS, he produced over 150 short-form segments for TV and social media. He has also produced, filmed and edited long-form documentaries for national television distribution such as Dialogue In Metal and the Emmy award-winning Music for Life: The Story of New Horizons. 

585-475-4034

Personal Links
Areas of Expertise

Currently Teaching

COMM-240
3 Credits
This foundational course explores how visual creators use new media and technologies for cultural impact and expression in a variety of fields. How have these new innovations merging art and technology impacted contemporary society by combining different languages, including visual, verbal, written and signed? By selecting case studies within the fields of, for example, film, journalism, digital media, games, internet culture, immersive media, students will understand how creative media is shaped by, and engages with, contemporary economic and social issues within the U.S.
COMM-272
3 Credits
This course introduces students to the principles and practices of gathering, evaluating, investigating, and presenting information to general audiences. Rights and responsibilities of the press will be analyzed. Although special emphasis will be given to writing and reporting for print publications, other media will be addressed. Special attention will be given to the qualities of writing, especially organization, accuracy, completeness, brevity, and readability. Assignments must conform to Associated Press style.
COMM-280
3 Credits
Community Journalism emphasizes the local aspects of news, and teaches students how to identify “community” beyond a region and a neighborhood. A co-taught course with Photojournalism faculty in the College of Art and Design, Community Journalism sharpens students’ reporting skills, and guides them in constructing a reporting project as a complete journalistic package, with visual, artistic and written storytelling components in concert with each other. The final project will be a reported (written) piece with corresponding photographs and multimedia.
COMM-321
3 Credits
An opportunity for undergraduates to learn the verbal and visual skills utilized in the creation of advertising messages. To create an effective strategy for an advertising campaign, the advertising copywriter/art director team needs to combine linguistic and visual metaphors into a persuasive message. Students will develop creative advertising messages by researching and writing a creative brief and then implementing the plan by transforming concepts into actual advertising messages and campaigns.
IDEA-150
1 - 3 Credits
This course will introduce students to selected topics in the areas of art and design. The course content will vary according to topic. A topic course description will be published each term the course is offered. Students may take this course multiple times with different topics.
ITDL-151H
3 Credits
This honors seminar is a foundational course that examines how our social worlds are linked to our natural and built worlds. The corresponding emphasis on inquiry, analysis, and interpretation facilitates student-engaged learning. In exploring pertinent place and space related issues/topics through an experiential, active, and site-specific curricular focused learning, various aspects of the human condition are discovered. The theme or topic of this honors seminar, as chosen by the instructor, is announced in the subtitle as well as course notes and is developed in the syllabus. The honors seminar integrates the required Year One curriculum.
ITDL-488
1 - 3 Credits
This course will provide a mechanism for teaching topics within the field of humanities and/or social sciences on an ad-hoc basis. This course will serve as a shell to allow the College of Liberal Arts flexibility to allow faculty across the college to teach a short-term course in their area of expertise. These short-term courses can take the form of • a course surrounding a professional opportunity, such as a conference or field study; • a short-term course developed to teach students skills not ordinarily offered in the curriculum, which may lead to a skills-based certification • a pop-up course developed to address a current event. Faculty who wish to stand up this course must have the permission of the department chair as well as the dean’s office.
PHPJ-280
3 Credits
As mainstream newsrooms shrink, fewer stories about issues relevant to local communities are written and photographed. This course introduces students to the principles and practices of community journalism. Community journalism focuses on hyper-local issues and is increasingly becoming an important source for local news and information. Students will learn about the importance of community journalism and will practice writing and photographing stories about community leaders and organizations, neighborhood stability factors, meetings, sports, crime, and changes in a small community near Rochester. The course will be structured around class discussions, workshops, and live reporting from the community.