David Kassnoff, lecturer of journalism and strategic communications and digital media, had a 30-year career in marketing communications — including serving as managing editor of Kodak.com; communications and community affairs manager at Kodak; and chief communications architect at DSK Writing and Communications.
He began working at the university in 2009.
Kassnoff said he feels prepared to take the helm of the communication program thanks to his robust resume.
“I have professional experience in journalism, starting my career as a newspaper reporter,” he said. “I also have about 30 years experience in marketing communications and public relations, and I’ve managed teams and departments.”
Because of his deep roots with Bonaventure, he feels many of the illustrious former professors and deans of the very same program for which he will soon take leadership.
“I like to feel that I’m a connector between the legacy and the teaching of Russ Jandoli, whose classes I took; Lee Coppola, who I first met when he was an instructor and Pauline Hoffmann, who’s been a mentor in my teaching life,” he explained, adding that he sees his past as weaving itself into a “tapestry of experience.”
Last year, Kassnoff graduated from St. Bonaventure again, this time with a graduate degree in the Integrated Marketing Communications program, which he felt added to his knowledge of a field he was already intimately familiar with.
“I think the IMC program gave me greater insight into the importance of research and the financial planning that goes into any successful marketing of a brand or product or service,” he said. “I had sort of picked those up intuitively in my corporate career… but in picking them up intuitively, you don’t necessarily look under the hood to see all the pieces operating together.”
He noted that the experience and wisdom of other professors in the program, many of whom are currently active in the world of professional communication, as well as insight from others in the program, helped him put together and defend his IMC plan.
His main goal for his time as interim dean is simple.
“I want to leave the Jandoli School better than when I found it,” he said. “I’m not in this for any personal gain; I’ve had a reasonably successful career in business and in journalism.”
He hopes to increase awareness for the school nationwide, boost enrollment and garner support from alumni and friends of the university.
“I want to leave, if I leave someday in the future, the Jandoli School in better health than when I arrived, not to say it’s not doing well now,” he said. “I think all of our assets could be strengthened.”
Reflecting back on his long relationship with the school, he hopes former students of the school look back and speak of their important experience with the school.
“I had a relationship with this program when it was simply the journalism department, since the mid-70s, and I have a lot of contemporaries who have gone on to do meaningful things, and I’m not looking for them to speak about David Kassnoff; I’m looking for them to speak about how the experience of a communications major from St. Bonaventure and the Jandoli School shaped who they became and what they achieved professionally.”
