By Meher Mehtab

When the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe resulted in the collapse of the communist dictatorship in Romania in 1989, native George Anghelcev was able to rid himself of his hard sciences education and pursue a degree in journalism, a field that had been heavily-controlled by the government. This shift later led him to become a media scholar at Pennsylvania State University. Now for the next few months, Northwestern University in Qatar students have the opportunity to learn from him as well. Anghelcev has been appointed as an associate professor in NU-Q’s journalism department; he is teaching strategic communication for the Fall 2016 semester.

“It was like you have been in a box for too long and now you are finally out of the box. We felt so liberated and free and happy,” Anghelcev said, remembering the revolution in Romania.

One of the first things that Anghelcev and his friends did after the fall of communism was start a daily newspaper. However, due to a bunch of similar start ups around that time, Anghelcev abandoned the idea and instead decided to take an advertising class during his undergraduate years at Babes-Bolyai University, which steered his interest towards strategic communication. After graduating, Anghelcev went on to attain a master’s degree from the same university, where he also landed his first job as an assistant professor in the strategic communication department. He taught at Babes-Bolyai for seven years before realizing he wanted to do something else.

“One day, I was standing in a lecture hall in front of about 80 to 100 students, and I was just doing the usual and telling them about the Intro to Persuasion class and they were asking questions. Suddenly, I froze – I felt like a hypocrite. I had this realization that, what if someone asks me what I have found out about strategic communications?” Anghelcev said. He said he felt like he was just teaching his students what others had found out about the subject. He wanted to be able to conduct research of his own.

Immediately after his epiphany, he went to the university’s dean and resigned so he could pursue a Ph.D. He would go on to earn his doctorate in advertising from the University of Minnesota. Soon after, he received a job offer from Pennsylvania State University, where he has taught for the past eight years.

At NU-Q Anghelcev is teaching a course called “Message Strategy and Persuasive Communication.” His research interests include studying media consumption behavior in Qatar, particularly the “binge-watching” phenomenon among teenagers. Currently on a sabbatical from Pennsylvania State, Anghelcev plans to return to Philadelphia after this semester is over. He will rejoin his family, who did not move to Doha with him.

Anghelcev said his curiosity and lack of knowledge about the Middle East brought him to Qatar and that he has been loving the spirit of this community ever since he arrived.

He said his favorite aspects of NU-Q life so far are the diversity in his classroom and the energy and enthusiasm of students here compared to those in the United States. According to Anghelcev, the entire university community has made his transition smooth by being very welcoming. He added that he is hugely impressed by all the support for research that is available to faculty in Education City.

“On a day I don’t teach or when I am free, I can choose to go home, but I choose to be here because it is really such a pleasure,” Anghelcev said.