Image: Dr. Celeste Condit has been granted the status of University Professor Emeritus by President Jere Morehead and the University of Georgia. Dr. Condit came to the university in 1989 and retired in July 2022. Her career here has been, as UGA Head Football Coach Kirby Smart might say, “elite.” Dr. Condit is an award-winning researcher. She won the Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Public Address twice, the National Communication Association Golden Anniversary Monograph Award, and the Douglas Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar Award. For her body of work and her impact on the study of rhetoric and communication, Dr. Condit has received many of the highest accolades at the university and in the field of communication. Dr. Condit was awarded the UGA Creative Research Medal and the UGA William A. Owens Award for outstanding body of work in the social sciences. She was also named a Distinguished Scholar by the National Communication Association. Dr. Condit retains the honor of Distinguished Research Professor, which she has held since 1999. UGA awards this distinction to “senior faculty who are internationally recognized for their innovative body of work and its transformational impact on the field.” This certainly describes Dr. Condit. Although the field of communication will continue to benefit from Dr. Condit’s research for generations to come, our department will miss her teaching, her mentorship, her leadership, and her presence. Once a COMM Dawg, always a COMM Dawg. We hope she’ll come back to visit (and maybe teach a seminar or two).
