Imagine crouching in a bush, microphone in hand, patiently waiting to capture the sound of birds chirping, thinking, “What am I doing? … This is cool as hell.” This is what a regular weekend looks like for Nicholas Messina, professor of communication, and it encapsulated everything about his decade here at Monmouth.
Messina has built a career that defies the traditional academic mold, balancing classroom instruction with voice over works, audio production, podcast creation, and union leadership.
His students aren’t just learning theory. They’re learning from someone whose voice has sold Old Navy jeans and Chili’s appetizers, who’s produced training modules for McGraw Hill and LEGO, who still takes on projects that require him to, well, hide in shrubbery to get the perfect sound bite.
Messina’s journey to academia started on stage in high school, but he decided that studying acting felt impractical, so he chose the next best thing – communication.
“I viewed studying communication as a bridge – I wanted to be a broadcast journalist and I liked the idea of telling stories,” said Messina.
The New Jersey STARS program covered Messina’s first two years at Brookdale Community College, where he discovered the campus radio station. Though he didn’t formally join until his sophomore year, once he did, everything clicked.
After transferring to Ramapo College for a degree in Global Communication and Media (with a minor in Italian Language and Culture, a detail that would later fuel passion projects), he interned at a commercial station and seemed destined for a traditional radio career.
Then came his 23rd birthday. He’d interviewed with a commercial station on Monday, and by Wednesday, he’d landed a job with WBJB – Brookdale’s station where it all began – to co-host their morning show.
The communication career path continued to work out for Messina. Once he hit the age where he realized he’d need his own health insurance really soon, Monmouth just so happened to have an opening for someone with audio and radio expertise.
The timing was almost fateful, if slightly awkward seeing as though he was younger than some of his students at the time.
Though his resume lacked a couple years of experience, Director of Advising for the Communication Department, Professor Lorna Schmidt, saw potential and asked him if he would consider graduate school.
What followed was a grueling two-year sprint. Messina recalls those early teaching years laughingly, “So, in my first academic year teaching I was doing the morning show, coming to teach classes, then the summer of 2016 started my master’s. I was teaching 4-5 classes, taking 2-3 classes, and writing my thesis … on the construction and dissemination of fake news…”
Now, as a specialist professor, Messina’s job description is refreshingly straightforward: keep working in the field. Stay current, practice what you teach.
“It’s a unique position. The objective is to consistently be working in the field, to still be improving hard skills in production … I love the research aspect, but the ebay way for me to teach students about audio production is being able to do it,” says Messina in regard to what it means to be a specialist professor.
The next time you see Messina, ask him what work he does to help him stay current, and he’ll smile knowingly.
“You would be surprised where your voice can be. I’ve done commercials for Old Navy, Chili’s, Lipton, videos for LEGO, Airstream (travel trailers) training videos, worked with airing and production services here at Monmouth, political advertisements, entire training and e-learning modules for McGraw Hill.”
His client list reads like a mall directory, and no one job is the same as the last. Audio production projects vary.
Messina stated that on any given day he can be hauling equipment to remote locations, spending hours in post-production layering tracks and syncing audio to video, or sometimes venturing into nature for authentic soundscapes.
Despite all of this, some of Messina’s most compelling work happens in his passion projects. Currently, he is developing a podcast series that shines a light on Italian-American history that most Italian-Americans don’t know – or don’t want to know.
He explores topics such as “The Years of Lead” and “The Anarchists of Patterson,” both of which were pivotal turning points in the history of Italian-Americans, especially those here in New Jersey.
That willingness to embrace uncomfortable conversations extended to his current role as the Communication Coordinator for FAMCO – the faculty union and the first at a private university to earn National Labor Relations Board support.
Within this role, he is planning campaigns to educate faculty about contract rights and translating dense legal language into accessible video content.
“Last year’s disagreement was on increased health care costs that were not relative to raises and we were at an impasse … After last year’s big win, the role is all about image maintenance, trying to stay positive in the eyes of the Monmouth community,” said Messina about the role and what he and FAMCO are doing currently.
With a decade at Monmouth behind him and ongoing projects always sitting at 75-85% completion, Messina shows no signs of simplifying. His calendar remains packed with classes, voice-over sessions, union work, and those perpetually unfinished podcast episodes about the history of Italy and its descendants.
For a communication professor, there’s no better lesson plan than living the complexities of communication itself.
