Biography
Dr. Melissa F. Tindage joined the faculty in the Department of Communication Studies as an Assistant Professor in 2018. Like many of the students at CSUN, she began her higher education journey by attending a community college--Pasadena City College. She then transferred to California State University, Los Angeles where she completed her B.A. in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Organizational Communication and Public Relations in 2011 and her M.A. in Communication Studies in 2013. In 2016, she earned her doctorate in Communication Studies from West Virginia University.
Relative to research, Dr. Tindage’s areas of studies are in instructional, intergroup, and organizational communication. Currently, her research focuses on the influence of instructional feedback on student learning and in-class communication behaviors. She also investigates the influence of individuals’ social identities (i.e., ethnic, racial, or cultural) on their communicative experiences in the educational and organizational contexts. Her research has been presented at regional, national, and international conferences; and published in academic journals such as Communication Education, Communication Teacher, Basic Communication Course Annual, and the Psychology of Popular Media Culture.
Although Dr. Tindage enjoys research, she considers herself first and foremost to be an educator. She has extensive experience teaching a wide range of courses within the Communication Studies discipline including organizational communication, small group communication, intercultural communication, business and professional communication, advertising as a communication process, communication and conflict management, public relations, communication science theory, and communication research methodology, to name a few. When teaching, she prioritizes students’ mastery of course content and their ability to apply it. She achieves this through using active learning strategies, student engagement techniques, and, at times, problem-based learning during class. Therefore, it would not be unusual to find students clustered in smaller discussion groups throughout the classroom or out of their chairs working on fostering effective communication skills during class.
In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, traveling, binge watching, and spending time with her husband, family, and friends.