St. Thomas professor Carol Bruess has been using her knowledge of relationships to help students and couples in the community for nearly two decades. Now, Bruess shares her expertise with a much larger audience as a relationship expert on the new WCCO mid-morning news segment, “Relationship Reboot.”

Bruess, director of the family studies department, said she was thrilled to receive the call about the new segment, especially since the role directly aligns with her personal goal as an academic.

“Part of my academic mission is to take the research that we have in our field and make sure it’s making the world more beautiful,” Bruess said. “I made a commitment to myself as a professional that I would always actively and intentionally translate my work for the public … I think it’s part of our obligation as academics to make sure our research – all the work we’re doing – is making lives better.”

Bruess and her co-anchor, clinical therapist Kirsten Lind Seal, host the four-minute segment every Wednesday as part of WCCO’s new show, Mid-Morning. Together, they are constantly immersed in research from professionals at work every day and examine their daily work to prepare for the show.

“We want to make sure that we’re addressing people’s most pressing relational dilemmas,” Bruess said. “Right now, we’re just scanning the literature and our own environments and finding what’s foundational and what we think people need to know.”

The co-anchors established two objectives for Relationship Reboot: to inspire people to make improvements in their relationships and to encourage viewers to find licensed help if they have significant problems. Bruess also hopes she can convey the importance of a healthy relationship to viewers.

“I think relationships are at the heart of our well-being personally, educationally, socially,” Bruess said. “If you don’t have healthy relationships, then you’re missing something. You can’t be holistically healthy without good relationships, and we are relational beings.”

So far, the viewers have agreed. After the duo’s first segment, WCCO found they had reached a successful rating in every demographic.

If the segment remains successful, Bruess said she hopes it will grow in the future.

“(Seal) and I hope that we can eventually get a little more time on air,” Bruess said. “With that, we can provide richer examples and discuss things in a more complex way. Eventually, maybe we could have viewers tweet in their questions during the segments or ask for clarification so we can address them in real time. That would be really cool.”

Senior Katie Tomsche, one of Bruess’ students, also hopes the show will stay on air and be able to expand so more people can learn from it.

“I think the fact that she’s so widely published and widely referenced in national magazines and local news makes her beyond qualified for this,” Tomsche said. “I think St. Thomas is very lucky to have her, and the fact that she’s stayed here for as long as she has is a testament to how much she loves the students and the community.”

Winding road to expertise

Bruess’ interest in studying relationships began at the end of her undergraduate education, but she said she never thought it was something she could do for a living.

“My undergraduate degree was in art,” Bruess said. “I’ve always been a high aesthetic type. I’m a seamstress; I’m making two wedding dresses for people this year. We’re always advised to follow what we love, so I got to school at St. Norbert’s, and I decided I was going to be an art major.”

After taking a few random electives her senior year, Bruess found something other than art clicked.

“I decided to take an interpersonal communication class,” she said. “I fell in love with it. I thought, ‘I can do this for a living?’, and my professor was so powerful in my life at that point. She became my mentor, and she had a Ph.D. in the same area. So I told myself I was going to be a professor, and I wanted to study relationships.”

As a graduating senior, Tomsche was relieved by Bruess’ story and said she always tells students not to worry about theirs.

“As a senior, I’m in her capstone class right now,” Tomsche said. “One of the things she always tells us is there is no single path. Everybody’s path is winding; everyone gets to their goal a different way. Everything will work out, and I think she is proof of that.”

Along with her education, Bruess has done extensive research in many outside studies that qualify her to give relationship advice. During her sabbatical, Bruess studied at the Gottman Institute, a relationship studies school, and became a trained Gottman educator.

Bruess has also published four books on relationships and has a fifth coming out next year.

Junior Meredith Heneghan, who has Bruess as a professor and adviser, said Bruess’ life work makes her more than qualified to give relationship advice.

“I can’t believe just how much she’s been published and how much research she’s done,” Heneghan said. “Seeing how much knowledge she can bring me shows how immensely qualified she is.”

Lauren Andrego can be reached at andr0090@stthomas.edu.