Carol Wilder
Carol Wilder is an author, teacher and filmmaker. She is Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University and The New School for Research, where she was Dean of Media Studies and Film and co-founder of the Graduate Program in Media Management.
She received a B.S. in English and M.A. in Communication and Theatre from Miami University and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Communication from Kent State, where she was a student on May 4, 1970.
Wilder has published dozens of book chapters and articles in numerous journals. She served on the Board of Directors of the International Communication Association, as President of the New York State Communication Association, and as Associate Editor of a range of academic journals.
In 2007-08 Wilder was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award and a Senior Specialist Award in 2011 for establishing a documentary film lab at Hanoi University in Viet Nam. She will return to Hanoi supported by Fulbright in October 2024 to lecture and advise on the program started in 2007.
Her most recent book Living Northern California 1975-1995 was published by WTW Media in 2013. Crossing the Street in Hanoi: Teaching and Learning About Vietnam (2013) was published by Intellect/University of Chicago Press. Rigor and Imagination: Essays from the Legacy of Gregory Bateson (Praeger 1981,with John H. Weakland) received the National Communication Association Book of the Year Award,
Wilder’s short film "Puttin' on the Dog" became part of the permanent archive of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2016. In 2017 she received the Kent State University Centennial Award.
Wilder's community service and advocacy includes more than thirty years on the Board of Directors/Advisors of Swords to Plowshares, a preeminent veterans support and advocacy organization in California. In May 2024 she joined the Board of Directors of KZYX radio, Mendocino County's public broadcasting station. She is also active in the Arena Theater short film festival, set for November 10-12, 2024.
A Cleveland native, after a few years in Boston, Wilder lived in California for 20 years, and New York City for three decades, before returning to her spot in Point Arena, California.