Awards

Lieber Memorial Associate Instructor Award - 1982

About Mary L. Kahl

Mary L. Kahl received a B.A. in Speech, English, & Education from the University of Michigan in 1976. She then earned her M.A. in 1978, and Ph.D. in 1994 at Indiana University in Speech Communication.

Kahl is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication & Media at New Paltz State University of New York. Previously, she taught at the University of California-Davis and at Boston College. She has lectured at the American University in Paris and, in the U.S., has been invited to speak at Hofstra University, Rhode Island College, and Southeast Missouri State University. Kahl is an expert in the areas of American speeches, discourses of commemoration, memorials, monuments, political advertising & communication, and Presidential campaigns, debates, primaries, & speeches. Presently, her research is focused on Presidential rhetoric & discourse associated with national monuments and memorials following 9-11.

Kahl has served as a consultant to C-SPAN, has worked with the Commission on Presidential Debates, has attended presidential debates in two election cycles, and has followed candidates in the New Hampshire Primary. She has been interviewed on NPR about the presidential debates and has written about presidential speeches for academic journals and conventions.

Kahl is a member of the National Communication Association, the Eastern Communication Association, the Rhetoric Society of America, the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, and the New York State Communication Association Organization for Research on Women in Communication. She is also the former President of the Eastern Communication Association, a former member of the National Communication Association's Legislative Assembly, and a consultant to C-SPAN. She serves on the editorial boards of several regional and national communication journals. Presently, Kahl is the Vice President of the New Paltz Academic Senate and chairs the Organization Committee.

Kahl has been the recipient of the Lieber Outstanding Teaching Award from Indiana University in 1982, a Distinguished Teaching Fellow from the Eastern Communication Association in 2000, and has been a member of the Committee of Scholars within the Eastern Communication Association since 2000.