Diane Gayeski ’74, professor in the Department of Strategic Communication at Ithaca College, has worked with clients like General Electric, Sony and Fiat through her consulting firm, Gayeski Analytics. Even as her firm grew, Gayeski chose to continue teaching at IC — and later, serve as the Dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications.
Though Gayeski will continue her research during a sabbatical in the 2026-27 academic year, she will retire from teaching at the end of Spring 2026, after 46 years of working at IC.
Gayeski said she first visited the college in 1972, after her first year of studying television at Marywood University. She was so impressed by the facilities that she decided to transfer for her junior year. Gayeski finished her degree a year early and decided to continue studying her growing interest in educational broadcasting and communications.
As Gayeski finished her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 1979, one of her former professors called her and said there was an open faculty position in the Department of Educational Communications.
“I thought maybe if I was really successful by the time I was maybe 60 years old, maybe somebody [would have] invited me back to do a guest lecture,” Gayeski said. “That was going to be my life’s dream. And then, somebody saying there’s a faculty position open — are you kidding me? … It was pretty wild.”
Gayeski started teaching courses about corporate video and corporate media. When personal computers were introduced in the 1980s, Gayeski started exploring how they could be used as educational tools.
“I started writing about how you can use these now very accessible personal computers to create all kinds of media for education, for instruction, for information,” Gayeski said. “I started teaching that, although I never studied it, but nobody ever studied it, right? We all invented it.”
As Gayeski continued to teach, publish and present about interactive video, professionals asked her to teach their companies how to use the emerging technology. She founded Gayeski Analytics to provide consulting advice for corporations, and has since worked on more than 300 projects across the United States and the world.
Gayeski said that teaching limited the number of clients that she could take on, and was not as financially rewarding as full-time consulting would have been. However, she said her passion has always been teaching — and balancing both interests made her a stronger consultant and professor.
Outside of teaching, Gayeski has published research articles and books about corporate communications strategy, corporate education and adopting new technologies. She has served on multiple college search committees and helped facilitate the Center for Faculty Excellence’s AI Digital Literacy Institute.
Gayeski also served as associate dean of the Park School faculty and interim dean of Graduate and Professional Studies before she became dean of the Park School in 2010.
Gayeski said she loved teaching so much that she did not want to be dean, but a retired dean convinced her to apply for the open position. During her time as dean, she introduced many initiatives, like launching a master’s degree in communications innovation and developing the Rod Serling Award for Advancing Social Justice Through Popular Media.
Gayeski said she wanted to return to the classroom to end her career, so she stepped down from her dean’s role at the end of the 2019-20 academic year.
As she returned to the classroom, she continued her commitment to experiential learning. She has partnered students with local organizations like WCNY and the State Theater to create their strategic plans.
“I tell my students, I don’t need to read another paper,” Gayeski said. “I know this stuff, but there are other people in the world or other organizations who really need your help. … When you’re putting your time into something, let’s help somebody else, and then that’ll give you more experience.”
During her sabbatical, Gayeski plans to study how artificial intelligence is impacting media and how the Park School can implement it in the curriculum. She said she will miss teaching, but will treasure the time she has spent at IC.
“I really feel that this place is special,” Gayeski said. “There’s a culture at Ithaca that is hard, if not impossible, to replicate, and I think that is the empowerment of undergraduate students. … There’s a lot of great communication schools out there, but a lot of them are much more oriented to their graduate students. And undergrads don’t get the real professors, they don’t get the real attention, they don’t get the real equipment, but here you get the real deal.”