We are pleased to announce this newest strategic initiative of the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. The Initiative for Innovative Inquiry is a collaborative effort of members of the faculty of the school. This strategic initiative promotes the exploration of human communication through methodologies, epistemologies and alternative representations of knowledge. We seek to stretch the boundaries of our traditional and foundational approaches for research.

We believe that advanced research, teaching and public discussion of communication in today's society must interrogate the very means by which we conduct and represent our knowledge. We seek to make the concepts we study accessible and useable to a wide range of publics, and desire to establish Arizona State University as a hub for developing methodologies, exploring the articulation of innovative epistemologies and creating alternative representation of our questions and findings. The initiative is composed of an interdisciplinary group of scholars at ASU and will open itself to scholars at partner institutions through annual workshops beginning in winter 2009-2010.

Faculty

Dan Brouwer, associate professor
Research interests: rhetoric, public sphere and social movements

Pauline Cheong, associate professor
Research interests: communication technologies, social disparities, access and health communication

Sarah 'Amira' De la Garza, associate professor and coordinator
Research Interests: culture an identity, spirituality and postcolonial/performance ethnography

Harold 'Bud' Goodall, professor
Research interests: narrative ethnography, creative nonfiction, organizational studies and rhetoric

Jennifer Linde, lecturer

Sarah Tracy, associate professor
Research interests: organizations, work-life wellness, emotion and workplace bullying

Angela Trethewey, associate professor and director
Research interests: communication, gender and identity, strategic communication and work-life issues