Skip to main content

The Reed College of Media and College of Creative Arts will merge to form the new WVU College of Creative Arts and Media as of July 1, 2024. Get details.

Marketing Communications
Apply Request Info

Matthew Cummings

Manager, Public Relations & Social Media at Erie Insurance
Teaches Introduction to IMC

Matthew Cummings

2012 Alexia Vanides Online Teaching Award Recipient

Matthew Cummings is the manager of public relations and social media at Erie Insurance (NASDAQ: ERIE), a Fortune 500 auto, home, business, and life insurance company based in Pennsylvania. In this role, he leads the brand’s public relations, social media, and content marketing team.

Prior to joining ERIE, Cummings served as the assistant director of online programs in the WVU Reed College of Media and as lead instructor in the IMC graduate program — teaching and managing IMC 610, the program’s introductory course. He has taught in the WVU Reed College of Media since 2006 and was honored with the program’s Alexia Vanides IMC Teaching Award in 2012.

Cummings’ award-winning marketing communications career spans more than 20 years in corporate, non-profit and education roles. He also served as vice president of a regional advertising agency and enjoyed a five-year career in commercial radio as an on-air announcer.

A native of northwest Pennsylvania, Cummings is a 2006 graduate of West Virginia University’s IMC program. In addition to his master’s degree, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in communications from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and studied at the graduate level at Seton Hall University in strategic communication and the University of Nebraska in education administration.

Meet Matthew Cummings

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:44 Why do you teach in the program?
2:03 How do you bring the real world into your online classes?
3:20 How do you engage with students?
4:40 Fun (surprise) questions

Professor Cummings was very active responding to all discussion threads by classmates and myself. He challenged us to dig deeper in our analysis and provided key takeaways as they related to IMC. He also started alternate threads to get our thought process reading for weekly writing assignments.

Professor Cummings took the time to respond to almost every discussion post with insightful feedback and thought–provoking responses. It was nice to have an instructor that was a part of the discussion and not just a voiceless entity.

The feedback from Professor Cummings is what truly helped me in this course. He didn't sugar coat anything for me. He knew my full potential and just wanted me to execute what I knew I could.