Faculty, Instructors and Staff in the News
Doctoral Student Awarded Building Great Communities Graduate Fellowship
ASU's Office of Public Affairs awarded doctoral student Michael Zirulnik the Lattie and Elva Coor Building Great Communities Graduate Fellowship for the 2011-12 academic year. This is a unique fellowship opportunity created to support graduate students doing community engaged scholarly work. The last paragraph in Zirulnik's application titled "Redistributive Governance: Reconnecting Arizonans to Washington & the State" describes his plan for community engagement:
"As Arizona celebrates its centennial of statehood, the voice of voters needs to be heard in a meaningful way. Exploring the ideas of redistributive governance with Arizona's citizens, centered on a focus of science and policy offers direction for the utility of my proposed project. This is an initiative that seeks to connect the community to ASU and strengthen existing relationships with external organizations and elected officials. This work pays attention to the need for bolstering civic participation and informed governance in a manner that is directly related to improving public policy in Arizona's neighborhoods and across the nation."
Olga Idriss Davis Keynote Speaker at Fundraising Gala
Olga Idriss Davis was featured as keynote speaker at the September 24, 2011 Inaugural Fundraising Gala of the Tanner Community Development corporation, Inc. in Phoenix, AZ. The keynote address was titled, "Footprints in the Community: Collaborations for Change." Attended by over 300 persons for an elegant, formal evening at the Arizona Science Center, Davis's keynote address encouraged audience members to build community partnerships and promote community empowerment to make a difference in reducing and eliminating health disparities.
Olga Idriss Davis Pioneers Interactive Health Kiosks
ASU's Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center featured Olga Idriss Davis and her health literacy research team in their spring newsletter [Research Behind the Scenes: Understanding the Needs of the Community through Interactive Health Kiosks. (2012, Spring). Infocus, 8:2, 2.].
Dr. Pauline Hope Cheong Interviewed by RadioNational on Media and Religion
Dr. Pauline Hope Cheong was interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, RadioNation recently on social media and religion. Interactive, mobile social media, dubbed Web 2.0 is increasingly becoming the medium through which people explroe spirituality, raising new questions that challenge religious authority and the meaning of religious community. Encounter program, Workshop 2.0 interview with Dr. Cheong
Arizona Forum on Civil Communication hosted by HDSHC
“Accessing Civility: Arizona Forum on Civil Communication” brought together leaders, scholars, and community members who work to promote civility as the essential first step in constructive public dialogue. The Forum, presented by the Hugh Downs School for Human Communication at Arizona State University and co-sponsored by the National Communication Association, was held Feb 3-4, 2012 in the Memorial Union, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
John Genette, a HDSHC alumnus, originally designed Civil Dialogue in 2004 as a way to explore citizen reaction to political rhetoric. He and Jennifer Linde, lecturer and Artistic Director for The Empty Space, facilitated dialogues in both the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Clark Olson, Instructional Professional and former Director of Forensics, has collaborated with Genette and Linde in the development of the format. They have facilitated Civil Dialogues with community groups and university students, taught the format to graduate students as an innovative research method, and trained National Communication Association educators and practitioners the process of staging and facilitating Civil Dialogues.
Doctoral Student Recipient of ASU's Martin Luther King Leadership Award
Doctoral student Tim Huffman is the recipient of ASU's Martin Luther King Student Servant Leadership award in recognition of his ongoing work with homeless youth in the Valley. The award is given to folks who embody servant leadership or "a practical philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions. Servant-leadership encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening and the ethical use of power and empowerment."
This year’s theme, Reflect and Act, is aimed to encourage students to reflect on where action can be taken to make a difference in someone’s life within the communities in and around ASU. “The importance of the MLK award is to remind us that every single day throughout the year, we can hold true to Dr. King’s legacy and continue to make the communities, the country and the world we live in a better place,” said Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, MLK committee chair. The ASU MLK Jr. Committee presented the Servant-Leadership Award of $1,000 at the MLK Breakfast on Jan. 23, 2012.
Faculty and Graduate Students Receive WSCA Top Paper Awards
The Hugh Downs School faculty, doctoral students, and alum will receive Top Paper Awards at the Western States Communication Association’s convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico on February 17-21, 2012.
Organizational Communication Division, Top Four Papers:
Kendra Dyanne Rivera, HDSHC alum, University of California San Marcos, “Cyberactivism in an Online Social Movement: Exploring Dialectical Tensions” Heather E. Canary, HDSHC alum, University of Utah, “Just Telling Stories? A Review of Policy, Organizations, and Communication Research 2001-2010"
Health Communication Division,Top Three Paper:
Kory Floyd, professor; Colin Hesse, HDSHC alum, University of Missouri; Justin Boren, HDSHC alum, Santa Clara University; Alice Veksler, HDSHC alum, University of Connecticut, “Affectionate Communication Can Suppress Immunity: Trait Affection Predicts Antibody Titers to Latent Epstein-Barr Virus”
Interpersonal Communication Division, Top Four Papers:
Anthony Roberto, professor; Douglas Deiss, Matthew Savage, Leslie Ramos Salazar, doctoral students; Jen Eden, HDSHC alum, Northern Illinois University, “An Experimental Investigation of Cybersafety Promotion and Cyberbullying Prevention for Parents of Middle School Students”
Colin Hesse, HDSHC alum, University of Missouri, “Privacy Management and Self-Disclosure: The Mediating Role of Emotional Competence”
Top Four Paper and Top Student Paper:
Christina Fleuriet and Megan Cole, doctoral students, “Exploring Facebook: The Role of Nonverbal Cues and Attachment Style in the Experience of Emotion”
Rhetoric and Public Address, Top Four Paper:
Karma Chavez, HDSHC alum, University of Wisconsin, “Beyond the Personal: The Coalitional Possibility of Radically Interactional Rhetoric”
Communication Theory and Research, Top Four Paper:
Amy Pearson, doctoral student, “Shifting Ontologies & Opening Space(s): Structuring Gender in the National Park Service”
Organization for Research on Women and Communication Division, top Four Paper:
Sara McKinnon, HDSHC alum, University of Wisconsin, “Standing in Her Shoes: Transnational Politics and Gendered Rhetoric in U.S. Asylum Policy for Chinese Opposing Population Control”
2012 Master Teacher Award:
Jess Alberts, professor
This award is presented by the Communication and Instruction Interest Group to recognize and honor great teachers in the field of communication.
Faculty and Graduate Students Receive NCA Awards
The Hugh Downs School faculty and graduate students will receive top paper and research awards at the National Communication Association's national convention in New Orleans, LA on November 17-20, 2011.
Kory Floyd, professor and associate director, will receive the 2011 Charles H. Woolbert Research Award. This prestigious award recognizes a journal article or book chapter that has stood the test of time and has become a stimulus for new concepualizations of speech communication phenomena. Drs. Floyd and his colleague, Mac Parks, are being honored for their article, "Making Friends in Cyberspace."
American Studies, Top Student Paper:
Chema Salinas, "Performing guilt and redemption: The art of Chris Burden, Ron Athey, and Steven Leyba"
Chinese Communication Studies, Top Student Paper:
Jie Gong, "Re-anchoring an ancient, emergent superpower: 2010 Shanghai World Expo, public memory, and national identity
Ethnography Division, Top Student Paper:
Jieyoung Kong, "Zeno's paradox: voices of martial art bodies"
Spiritual Communication, Top Student Paper:
Tim Huffman, "Resolving spirited debates: recasting communication inquiry as a spiritual practice
2011 Charles H. Woolbert Research Award:
Kory Floyd, associate professor and assistant director, and colleague, Mac Parks, "Making friends in cyberspace" published in the Journal of Communication 1996.
Outstanding Masters Thesis Award:
Elizabeth Rush, master's student alum, "The conceptual construction of innovation: performance labor to manufacture mood, chase goals, and assemble success in incubator organizations"
Top Four Paper Award:
Kendra Rivera, doctoral alum, "Feeling America's dirty work: voicing emotional labor taint at the U.S. Border Patrol"
Dr. Sarah Tracy Guest on KGNU MorningMagazine
Dr. Sarah Tracy was part of a Sept. 22 radio program on school yard and workplace bullying. Tracy was a guest on KGNU MorningMagazine during their quarterly Conflict Resolution show, looking at bullying in schools and in the workplace, “The Power of Bullies, what to do?” Associate Professor Sarah Tracy is the Director of The Project for Wellness and Work-Life and specializes, with years of research, in workplace bullying. You can link to this one-hour program at www.kgnu.org/morningmag. KGNU is a community radio station in Boulder/Denver.
Welcome to New Doctoral Director
Dr. Jess Alberts was unanimously recommended by the Graduate Faculty in Communication as the new doctoral director for The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. Dr. Alberts was thereby appointed to the position by Angela Trethewey, Director of The Hugh Downs School. We wish to welcome Dr. Jess Alberts as Doctoral Director as we thank Dr. Sarah Tracy for her service over the past four years in this position.
Hugh Downs School Academic Advisor Elected Tempe Campus Staff Council President
Carol Comito, academic advisor in The Hugh Downs School, was elected the Tempe Campus Staff Council President for 2011-2012. "The Staff Council exists to support and celebrate staff in their work at ASU. We achieve this by providing a forum to discuss important issues and a mechanism to articulate staff ideas, concerns, and successes to university leadership." Carol is also a Sun Devils Spirit Captain.
HDSHC Professor Facilitates International Workshops
Professor Benjamin Broome put to use his intercultural communication and peacebuilding skills this summer, when he facilitated dialogue workshops for participants in the 2011 International Neighbourhood Symposium, organized by the Center for International and European Studies (CIES) at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. He worked with a group of 25 young professionals from across the Black Sea Region, including participants from Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Greece. The focus of the symposium was on “Understanding the Common Neighbourhood – The Black Sea Region in Focus.” The aim of the symposium was to promote further understanding and cooperation in the Black Sea region and beyond by providing a forum for study, dialogue and networking in a multicultural and interdisciplinary environment. This year the symposium was held on the historic island of Heybeliada near Istanbul. Professor Broome says of his experience: "It is a great privilege to work with a wonderful group of dedicated young people coming from such rich cultural and professional backgrounds. The issues they discussed are extremely complex, but they did not shy away from facing the plethora of challenges confronting the region in which they will be the future leaders. It was a demanding group, and we had to struggle with some hard issues, but they were able to engage in fruitful dialogue, proposing creative ideas and finding ways to work together effectively. I was especially honored to work closely with the director of CIES, Dr. Dimitrios Triantaphyllou, who is clearly a visionary person and is one of the primary actors in promoting dialogue and encouraging cooperation in the region. I look forward to continued collaboration in future projects."
Doctoral Student Appointed Fellow and Sr. Policy Analyst at The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C.
Michael Zirulnik, HDSHC doctoral student, was appointed Fellow and Sr. Policy Analyst at The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C., for summer 2011. He will maintain his affiliation at the center and continues to work on issues of redistributive governance, connecting nationwide nodes of subject matter experts with members of Congress via mediated communication technology is an effort to bolster a specialized knowledge base to better inform policy decision-making within the US Congress.
Michael is also be co-authoring a book with his colleague (a top national security expert). The text will offer women a guide to discussing war and peace around the world in instances where women become key figures in security sector reform in post-conflict nations.
Online Course Evaluations for Communication Classes
The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication now utilizes online course evaluations for all Communication classes beginning with the spring 2011 semester. The Academic Affairs Manual (ACD 304-09 Evaluation of Teaching) dictates that “Every instructor in every class every semester is required to administer a departmentally approved course evaluation form. The administration procedure should assure the students’ ability to respond forthrightly and anonymously. The evaluation should be distributed and collected by someone other than the instructor; the instructor should not see the evaluation or its summary prior to submitting grades for the course; and a copy of the results should be reviewed by the department chair. “The online evaluation process provides our school and instructors with better data to use to improve the student experience at ASU by providing faster access to results, more robust reporting, and the opportunity for students to write lengthier and more thoughtful comments on open-ended questions in the evaluation.
HDSHC Doctoral Student One of ASU’s Entrepreneurs
Tim Huffman, a doctorate student in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, is taking a lead role in supporting homeless youth, and in 2010 won funding through the ASU Innovation Challenge to partner with the organization Stand Up for Kids, a national organization that provides outreach to homeless children and young adults. Tim proposed innovative new methods to enhance the group's outreach to homeless youth, as well as to further build the Arizona Stand Up for Kids volunteer base. “Maricopa County had over 4,000 homeless youths under the age of 21 in 2009” Huffman said. Huffman’s project would nearly double the number of SUFK volunteers that can support this population. Over the long term, Huffman believes that his partnership with SUFK would lead to increased educational attainment rates and enhanced health and well-being among homeless youth, as well as decreased crime rates in the Phoenix area. To make this sort of change happen, Huffman is relying on his expertise in the field of communication.
“Competitions like this give you an immediate opportunity to apply your skills,” Huffman said. To read more about Tim's project.