News 2014

Department Represented at National Communication Association's 100th Annual Convention

The department was well represented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, held November 20-23, 2014 in Chicago.

Dr. David Askay was a respondent on a panel, The Bigger the Data the Harder the Fall? Opportunities, Methodologies, and Challenges to Big Data Analysis.

As president of the Environmental Communication Division, Dr. Richard Besel coordinated the Division Business Meeting.

Dr. Jnan Blau was a presenter on a panel, Energetic Communication: Exploring Contexts and Applications in Pasts, Presence, and Futures; a respondent on another panel, Women in (and out) of Religion: Feminism and Non-Christian Religious Identities; a performer in A Process of (Non) Linear Inquiry: Adaptation, Collaboration, and Digital Media; and the Chair of NCA Performed: Ludic, Critical, and Aesthetic Renderings.

Dr. Bernard Duffy was a presenter on a panel, The Past as Present in the Ideological Turn: A Panel Discussion of Dr. Phil Wander’s Shadow Songs.

Dr. Michael Fahs was a presenter on three panels, Past, Present, and Future of Training and Development: An Assessment of Five Years Out, Five Years Later; Executive Leadership Development, Growth and Action Learning: Generating a Twenty Fold Return on Investment; An Exploration of the Theoretical Foundations of the Training and Development Discipline: Our Present, Past(s), and Future.

Dr. Lauren Kolodziejski chaired a panel, Rhetorical Theory Perspectives on Health Communication: Framing, Stigma, and Rhetorical Agency.

Dr. John Patrick was a presenter on a panel, The Role of Leadership and Self-Directed Learning in Research Practices for Parliamentary Debate.

COMS Faculty

Dr. Lorraine Jackson presented a paper "Promoting Engaged Learning with e-Portfolios" at the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence Based Learning in Long Beach, CA.

Dr. B. Christine Shea was a presenter/respondent on a competitive papers panel, "Critical Readings of Media Representations," and chair of a Competitive papers panel, "On Good Terms:  Team and Group Interaction in Organizations, at the International Communication Association 64th Annual Conference in Seattle, WA.

Dr. Jnan Blau attended a meeting with officials at the Lincoln International Academy in Santiago, Chile to discuss potential student-teaching internships and exchanges.

Dr. Richard Besel and Dr. Bernard K. Duffy were informed that their book, GREEN VOICES: DEFENDING NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN AMERICAN CIVIC DISCOURSE, has been accepted by the editorial board of the State University of New York Press.


Spring Banquet 2014

The Communication Studies Club held the Annual Spring Banquet at the San Luis Obispo Country Club on May 30.   Departmental Awards and Scholarships were announced at the event.  Anna Gerlach and Jenna Davis won The Outstanding Academic Achievement Award.  Elizabeth DeVeny won the Outstanding Service Award.  Jenna Davis was selected as this year’s Outstanding Senior.   Community Service awards were given to Jenna Davis, Jessie Chernekoff, Anna Gerlach, and Jillian Syftestad.   Anna Gerlach received the Ledwith Communication Studies Scholarship, Chase Welcher received the Keith and Lonna Nielsen Scholarship, Paula Boucher received the Keith and Lonna Nielsen Diversity Scholarship and Thomas Thompson receive the Carla O’Neil Sage Scholarship.   The Nielsens, Sages, and Ledwiths were on hand to present the awards.   Drs. Askay, Besel, Duffy, Fahs, and Woolley also participated in presenting awards.

Students graduating with honors were recognized for their exceptional academic achievement: Erin Abzug, Daisy Brightman, Kristina Cosgrave, Nichole Lorenz, and Corinne Sherman for graduating cum laude; Kellie Brown, Jessica Chernekoff, Danielle Morrison, and Brent Weber for graduating magna cum laude;  and Jenna Davis for graduating summa cum laude. 

A faculty committee selected Ms. Sheri Twisselman Davis as the recipient of the Outstanding Educator in General Education Classes Award and the Communication Studies Club selected Dr. Richard Besel as the recipient of the Outstanding Educator in Major Classes Award.

Congratulations to those who won awards this year and thanks to those who organized the highly successful event.

Dr. David Askay

Dr. David Askay has published "Silence in the crowd: The spiral of silence contributing to the positive bias of opinions in an online review system," in New Media & Society.  Scientific Journal Rankings has New Media and Society as the top journal in Communication while Thomson Reuters ranks it ninth out of 72 journals. 

Danielle Berton Summer Internship

Danielle Berton, a Communication Studies major, has been selected for the Clinton Foundation internship consisting of 60-90 students chosen from throughout the nation. The students are placed in one of five different divisions--Research and Analysis, Communications, Logistics, Technology, and the Clinton Presidential Center and Museum in Little Rock. Selected applicants are then assigned either to Little Rock, Arkansas or New York City.

Danielle will be working in the Logistics Division in New York City on the Fundraising Team. Her duties will include updating the database, compiling profiles of major donors, and assisting in the research and recruitment of potential new donors. The elaborate application process included a dossier with a resume, an essay, a biography, a writing sample, and two letters of recommendation.

Some candidates were then contacted by the individual departments for interviews. Depending on the feedback from these departments, a few candidates were contacted for a final interview by the Director of the Intern Program. Danielle received offers from two different departments and is extremely excited to join the Fundraising Team and contribute to the Clinton Foundation this summer.
 

2014 Career Symposium

Career Symposium


The 27th annual Career Symposium sponsored by the Communication Studies Department was held Sunday, January 26 at the Gardens of Avila Restaurant. This 2014 event was attended by over 60 people who enjoyed a delicious Sunday brunch buffet and a delightful program of five presenters, including alumnae who graduated from 1989 to 2007.

Professions ranged from the traditional (banking and human resources) to the evolving communication careers (entertainment and event coordination) to the entrepreneurial (restaurant ownership). Attendees also learned from Ashleigh Halter, the new career counselor for the College of Liberal Arts. Feedback has been universally positive and plans are already in the works for 2015.

Results from the 2014 Pan-American Debate Tournament


The Cal Poly Debate Team is pleased to announce it won the title of Finalists at the University of Miami’s Pan American Debate Championship, and that Mr. Ryan Curtain was awarded the 8th place speaker at the tournament. This accomplishment places Cal Poly Debaters among the best in the western hemisphere. The tournament welcomed prestigious debate teams from universities in South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and North America, and was ultimately won by an international team from Moorehouse University, comprised of American and Jamaican debaters.

There were nine rounds of debate on a variety of topics. The final round was about adopting Spanish as an official language in areas of The United States with large Spanish-speaking populations. Mr. Ryan Curtain and Mr. Bryan Pride argued in the final that the English language’s status as the de facto official language in America creates barriers to participation in society for Spanish-speakers because linguistic privilege shapes how power-holders perceive and respond to lower-status individuals’ needs, and that this rarely benefits lower status people.

International debate tournaments benefit students by exposing them in person to perspectives they might not normally access in a regional or national debating circuit. They also offer the opportunity to present and receive feedback on the arguments they research and develop during the course of their education. Finally, events such as this offer an especially unique opportunity for both students and faculty members to connect and develop relationships with colleagues from around the world. These relationships often result in opportunities to generate new professional and research experiences.

Possible Job Openings

Madeleine Dowd, the District Manager of the Social Security Administration and a Cal Poly Communication Studies graduate (1988), is soliciting applications for positions in the Sacramento Social Security Office. Please contact her at Madeleine.Dowd@ssa.gov

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