Patricia Harms
Clinical Professor of Management and Corporate Communication
Patricia Harms’ interests and research include visual rhetoric, slide design and communicating with data; performance feedback; virtual teaching and learning; and business writing and presenting strategies and trends, including generative AI tools in business communication contexts.
She has taught written and oral business communication at UNC Kenan-Flagler since 2003.
Dr. Harms is co-author of “Connect Master: Business Communication” (McGraw-Hill, 2024) with Dr. Heidi Schultz.
She was elected as the president of the Association for Business Communication (ABC), the largest professional organization focusing exclusively on business communication. She previously served as ABC’s vice president and Southeastern U.S. regional vice president. She is a member of the Management Communication Association.
She received the 2023 Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award, which honors an ABC member whose teaching has made an outstanding contribution to the business communication discipline.
She teaches in the MBA programs and Master of Accounting Program at UNC Kenan-Flagler and in UNC Kenan-Flagler Executive Development custom programs. In 2024, she was selected by her Weekend Executive MBA students for the Executive MBA Teaching Excellence Award.
Dr. Harms serves on the editorial review board for Business and Professional Communication Quarterly and received the BPCQ Outstanding Article of the Year with co-author Dr. Deborah Roebuck in 2011.
Her corporate and executive clients include the Defense Logistics Agency, Duke Energy, Durham Public Health Department, DeltaEd, Federal Drug Administration, Kresge Foundation: Emerging Leaders in Public Health, Mental Health Leadership Academy, North Carolina Division of Public Health Preparedness and Response Branch, North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health, Novant, U.S. Army, Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of the Triangle NC, Vulcan Materials, and the Division of Finance and Administration, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Graduate School, Professional Science Master’s Program, School of Nursing and School of Medicine, all at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Prior to her academic career, she was an administrator for a small, home-health agency where she also was responsible for marketing and public relations. A former registered nurse, she has worked in labor and delivery, infection control, and hospital and home-health staff development.
She received her PhD in rhetoric and professional communication from Iowa State University, her MA in business and technical writing from Iowa State University, and her BSN from the University of Pennsylvania.
