Photo by: Provided by Houma Today

Dr. Brian Matherne and daughter Kellie Daniels

Nicholls State University’s Department of Mass Communication will implement the Nancy Sanderson Matherne Institute for Global Communications.

The Nancy Sanderson Matherne Institute is a program designed to aid students in increasing their understanding and practice of international communication.

Through this institute, Nicholls mass communication students will receive the opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom, work directly with an international client and pitch a campaign to a panel of communication specialists. 

Dr. Brian Matherne, a Houma physician, and his daughter Kellie Daniels, a lecturer in public relations and corporate communication at Newcastle University in England, created the institute in honor of his mother. Matherne, a United Kingdom native and long-time Terrebonne Parish resident, became the first female member of the Terrebonne Parish School Board years ago.

Mass Communication Department Head Dr. James Stewart says that Matherne’s dedication to education and acknowledgment of travel benefiting learning is one of the reasons this institute exists.

“The one for whom this institute is named, the grandmother of Kellie, she was from England,” Stewart said.

He explained Kellie’s that grandmother married her husband, an American serviceman, during WWII.

“She moved here, and she always believed that people can learn a lot from travel,” Stewart said.

Stewart stated this institute, as it is international communication forward as opposed to local-centric, will help provide opportunities for current students and future recruited students due to its international appeal and outreach.

“It allows us this conduit to get some of our stories about our culture, our challenges, those kinds of things, to a broader community and honestly give our students the opportunity. We have produced a number of outstanding students in the mass communications program. I don’t know that even people in the community realized what the track record of our graduates has been. I’m talking Pulitzer Prizes, Emmy Awards, you name it. For some of our students, this is the opportunity to, if you will, get their brand out to an international audience,” Stewart stated.