Lynn Zoch will be the founding director of Radford University’s School of Communications. The new school combines the departments of media studies and communications and will hold its first classes this fall. It will offer six undergraduate degrees and a master’s in corporate and professional communication.

Zoch is director of master’s degree programs in advertising and public relations at the University of South Carolina, where she has been on the faculty since 1993.

She earned her bachelor’s degree at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., and she earned a master’s degree in public relations management. She also has a doctorate in public communications from Syracuse University.