Wayne State College welcomes Shelby Hagerdon, the new adjunct professor of Communication Arts.

At the end of the 2025 spring semester, the Wayne Stater and the rest of the Communication Arts department lost one of their full-time professors, Liz Viall, causing the KWSC TV station and now Wayne Stater advisor, Pat Janssen, to step in. Adjunct professor Shelby Hagerdon was hired to help take the load off. Hagerdon teaches Intro to Mass Communication, Media Literacy and Integrated Brand Promotion.

Hagerdon is a WSC graduate from Smithland, Iowa, and enjoyed hanging out in the Sioux City area. She now lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hagerdon got her undergraduate degrees in Film Production and Theory and in History from WSC. She then attended Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, for her Master’s in screenwriting. When Hagerdon was at Wayne State, she was one of the pilot students for the film department and was also a Neihardt Scholar.

This is Hagerdon’s first semester teaching at Wayne State, but she has given lectures at film festivals and educational series. Hagerdon recently finished a lecture alongside Mike White, WSC’s head film professor. Other than teaching film at Wayne State, Hagerdon works remotely as a full-time animation producer.

As her degree suggests, Hagerdon loves filmmaking. She works directly with White in the film department, helping students with creating their films. Filmmaking is one of Hagerdon’s many hobbies, as well as writing and attending various film festivals.

Hagerdon’s explanation as to why she’s in the Communication Arts department is simple.

“I feel like I kind of stumbled into it,” Hagerdon said. “I was in History. I had every intention of being a history professor. I fell in love with filmmaking because I wanted to be able to tell stories, especially historical stories, in a more accessible way because often times a lot of those stories get kind of lost and if you don’t just have access to research, it might be difficult to get those stories.”

Hagerdon came back to Wayne State because she cares about the growth of the school, especially in the Mass Communication department. Hagerdon also just loves Wayne State as a whole. Especially now with shifting things around as Hagerdon takes hold of two of Janssen’s classes, Hagerdon is excited to see the school she loved, and still loves, grow exponentially in every area.