By Ana Jaramillo
As an intern at The City of Lake Forest and a communication major at Lake Forest College, I wanted to interview the head of the Communication Department at the school.
Dr. Elizabeth Benacka has worked in numerous fields over the years, including full-time at a law firm during college. She started as a part-time lecturer in the Communication Department and has now been at Lake Forest College for more than 15 years.
Students prepare discussions based on each text in Dr. Benacka's senior seminar.
As a senior seminar professor, Dr. Benacka teaches her students about the rhetoric of U.S. civil rights by examining multiple texts. Reading about Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, and Frederick Douglass -- and exploring their impact on contemporary issues -- are just a small part of this course. Dr. Benacka incorporates local issues to help students understand the relevance of the civil rights movement today.
“My happy place is and always has been a classroom. Whether I am the student or the teacher, when I stay curious, I always leave a classroom having learned something new,” said Dr. Benacka.
Dr. Benacka teaches her senior seminar every year.
“I am hoping my seniors in Rhetoric of Civil Rights will put together a panel on contemporary issues for Student Symposium in the spring,” said Dr. Benacka. “The students are passionate about the civil rights issue that they chose to examine. The information they have all gathered is important to share with the campus community.” Students prepare discussions based on each text and do constant research on their semester-long project, where students choose any civil rights violation they're interested in to research.
Dr. Benacka earned her undergraduate degree in journalism at Loyola University Chicago in 2003, and her mentors encouraged her to consider graduate school. Later she earned her master's degree and PhD. in rhetoric at Northwestern University in 2007. Dr. Benacka reflected on her time working in law firms.
“My 10-year career as an administrative assistant in law firms taught me you need to be organized and consistent with the workload you are given,” she said. “Figuring out how to deal with big personalities in positions of power was also a life skill I acquired.” She feels fortunate to have found her home at Lake Forest College. “Our department has three rhetoricians and two media studies professors, which means that we offer classes that address the entire spectrum of communication theories and methods,” she said. “This provides a great curriculum for our students.”
The Communication Department was the first on campus to require an internship for students to complete their degree.
“We firmly believe that students need real-world experience before committing to a job,” said Dr. Benacka. “At the very least, you need to figure out what you don’t want to do!”