---

Happy June COMS Mustangs!

This newsletter is designed to help keep majors, minors, faculty, and staff up-to-date so you can learn about news, career advice, events, networking opportunities, well-wishes, and inspirational stories surrounding your peers and community.

---

Announcements 

Special Note to Our Graduates
Congratulations Class of 2024! After all the presentations, papers, and endless group projects, you've made it! The Communication Studies faculty and staff are incredibly proud of you and all that you have accomplished in your time at Cal Poly. What a privilege it has been to get to know you, learn alongside you, and support you in pursuing your dreams. As you anticipate the next stage of your adventure, I know it can feel a bit bittersweet to say goodbye. Please know you will always be a part of our COMS community, and you will be missed - so please come back to visit or send us an update once in a while :). Wishing you all the best for whatever comes next! We hope to see you at the CLA Graduation on Sunday June 16, 4:30 PM at Spanos Stadium!

Graduating Senior Exit Survey
Are you a senior graduating this spring? Before your time at Cal Poly wraps up, remember to fill out the COMS Senior Exit Survey. This will help the COMS department stay in touch with our graduates and to know what your plans might be after graduation. Best of luck in your future endeavors and know that we would love to stay connected to you!

COMS Awards & Spring Social Recap
We had so much fun celebrating the end of the academic year with our students, faculty, and staff at both our COMS Awards & Recognition Ceremony and also the annual Spring Social! Stay tuned in the next week to our Instagram account to see some special pictures from these events. 

BEACoN Symposium
The Office of University Diversity and Inclusion invites the campus community to the annual BEACoN Research Scholars Symposium, which showcases research projects conducted by student and faculty teams across all 6 Academic Colleges. The symposium takes place June 12th from 12:00 - 2:00 PM in the Cal Poly Multi-Activity Center. This year, we're celebrating the following student researchers and their COMS faculty advisors who are presenting at the annual symposium:

• Samantha Brandts & Shivali Rao (with faculty advisors Dr. Anu Dhillon & Dr. Megan Lambertz-Berndt) are presenting their study titled: Navigating Microaggressions: Unearthing Belonging and Muted Experiences Among Marginalized Campus Community
• Keilana Calder & Adanna Okiwelu (with faculty advisor Professor Alexa Loken) are presenting their study titled Unveiling post-graduate trajectories of BEACoN alumni

 

Debate News
Congrats to our debate team students who have had a variety of amazing successes over the past quarter! To name just some of their accomplishments:

• Students on the Spanish debate team recently won two competitions: one in Mexicali and one hosted at Cal Poly (see the May newsletter for a reminder summary). 
• Additional students Franky Chardos and Mason Boerger both placed as open-division finalists in the fourth preliminary the YODL Tournament and then placed as open-division quarter-finalists at the championship.
• They were joined in the break by Brenden Jacoby and Josh Rillo, who placed as open-division semifinalists.
• Finally, Mason Boerger and Rachel Strohecker placed in the top 3 teams at the Sierra Sustainability Summit.
• The Sierra Sustainability Summit is an innovative new program designed by graduate student Shane Patrick (winner of the CLA Graduate Student of the Year Award), which will likely provide partnership opportunities for the Cal Poly Debate Team at Yosemite in the future as well! 
   

---

Events & Opportunities

Media & Comm Research Initiative
Want to receive travel funding to present the results of a class project at a destination conference? The Media & Communication Research Initiative (MC-Cal Poly) is now accepting applications for the 2024-2025 cohort! In this program, you can apply to receive funding and support to present original research from a class project at an academic conference. For application materials and more information, visit the MC-Cal Poly website. Early bird applications are due by June 30th. 

Polyhacks Planning Committee
Join the 2024-2025 Camp Polyhacks Hackathon Planning Committee! Camp Polyhacks is an ASI Student Club that organizes a yearly interdisciplinary hackathon focusing on local challenges. This event brings students from across campus together for a weekend to learn from community partners and tackle pressing problems in the community. This is a great learn-by-doing experience that may count for class credit (e.g., internship) and/or senior project. Plus, you'll work closely with an inspirational team. In turn, you will: Gain hands-on experience and hone practical skills, join a close-knit team of passionate students, build relationships, and network with industry professionals. For more information visit the signup link.

SLO Shortcuts Spring 2024
The Cal Poly Short Cuts screening is a bi-annual event held during the spring and winter quarter that showcases Cal Poly student-made films primarily from the ISLA 341 class - taught by Professor Randi Barros - and other classes or clubs on campus. For the spring 2024 edition of Short Cuts, they will be screening four films, three from the ISLA 341 class - Cold Hard Cash, Take Care, Solace in the Midnight Sun- and one film from the on-campus club Mustang Film Society - Incomprehensible Times @Filmore High. The screening will be held on Wednesday, June 12th at the Palm Theatre, located in Downtown SLO, from 7-9 PM and entry is FREE. As a bonus, following the screening of the films, there will be a Q&A with the cast and crew of each film. For more information, visit the event Instagram and related website.

Wellbeing Warmups
Wellbeing Services is excited to announce Wellbeing Warmups. Wellbeing warmups are 5-15 minutes of guided wellness activities that can be designed for any campus group including clubs, classes, sports, etc. They can be scheduled before, during or after any class or event of your choosing. Some examples of wellbeing warmups can include mindful movement, mini-mediation, joyful journaling, and balanced breathing. To schedule a Wellbeing Warmup, visit the signup form. Reservations should be made ideally two weeks in advance and the reservation form is checked weekly. If your request requires an immediate response, please email wellbeing@calpoly.edu or call (805) 756-6181.

---

Student Awards & Recognitions

The COMS Department celebrated the accomplishments of our amazing students at our Awards & Recognitions Ceremony, Thursday, June 6. At this event, we announced student achievements in areas such as academic excellence, research, service, and DEI efforts. Congratulations to our awesome students! 

Department Awards
 

Recognition for COMS Club

• Co-President: Bailey Marie Kulesza
• Co-President: Madison Vernon
• Treasurer & Event Coordinator: Rohit Nandyala
• DEI Chair: Liana Chen
• Creative Design Director: Gabbie Acquisto
• Secretary: Keira Taksa    
• Marketing Director: Ellen Nunes
• Website Director: Joelle To
• Faculty Advisor: Dr. Anuraj Dhillon

Recognition for Lambda Pi Eta (LPH) 

• President: Prema Yousuf
• Vice President: Chloe Decas
• Treasurer: Iley Wotring
• Secretary: Ava Whitehorn
• Planning & Events: Kristina Yan
• Member at Large: Nina Olson
• Faculty Advisor: Dr. Leslie Nelson

New Lambda Pi Eta (LPH) Inductees (2023-2024)

• Alyssa Brook
• Angus Shen
• Autumn Thibodeaux
• Bailey Kulesza
• Brenden Jacoby
• Colleen Hotz
• Ella Captain
• Emily Drawer
• Emma Johnson
• Eve DeGeronimo
• Evelyn Walker
• Gabriella Perich
• Isabella Ray
• Kaylie Marrs
• Kiana Ansari
• Madeleine Peachey
• Marshall Piros
• Miranda Ward
• Morgan White
• Parker McKenzie
• Rachel Liberman
• Rohit Nandyala
• Rowan Colleary
• Samantha Brandts
• Sydney McCarter
• Tanna Curtis

 

Debate Team Awards

• Debaters of the Year: Franky Chardos, Mason Boerger, Andrea Valle 
• The Winebrenner Team Service and Spirit Award: Brenden Jacoby
• The Christopher Skiles Research Beast Award: Araceli Aronin
• The Gwendolyn Stewart Community Engagement Award: Joshua Rillo 

Recognition for Involvement with Undergraduate Research

• Adanna Okiwelu
• Brenden Jacoby
• Bridget LaPorte
• Cameron Bader
• Gabrielle Low
• Hannah Goudz
• Kaley Scheppler
• Kate Macpherson
• Kendall Baebler
• Keilana Calder
• Kristina Yan
• Lily Rivas
• Natasha Malinovsky
• Olivia Thomas
• Samantha Brandts
• Shivali Rao
   

Outstanding Research Award

• Brenden Jacoby
   

Recognition for Service

• Adrianna Blodgett
• Alyssa Brook 
• Angus Shen
• Anna Dickinson
• Brenden Jacoby
• Brook Strodder
• Ellie Conway
• Gabriella Perich
• Hanna Lee
• Kayla Wrobel
• Kendall Baebler
• Kiana Ansari
• Kristina Yan
• Lily Jaynes
• Mason Asphar
• Mason Boerger
• Prema Yousuf
• Reiko Scilingo
• Rohit Nandyala 
• Sunny Wakeman
• Sydney McCarter
• Wendy Miyazaki

Outstanding Service Awards

• To the COMS Department: Kristina Yan
• To the College/University: Alyssa Brook & Kendall Baebler
• To the Community: Wendy Miyazaki

Recognition for Visionary Student Contributions

• Brenden Jacoby
• Gabriella Perich
• Hannah Siegel
• Kendall Baebler
• Lily Rivas
• Mason Boerger

Visionary Student Award

• Lily Rivas
   

Academic Excellence Award

• Adrianna Blodgett
• Alyssa Brook
• Brenden Jacoby
• Chloe Decas
• Kendall Baebler
• Kristina Yan
• Lily Jaynes
• Lynne Richards
• Wendy Miyazaki

Outstanding Senior Award

• Brenden Jacoby

---

University/Leadership Awards

In addition to our COMS Department awards, we're also enormously proud of our students who have won recent college, university, leadership, and event awards! Another round of congratulations goes to the following students:  

CSU Social Science Student Symposium (S4)

• Runner Up (Second Place) McCall Award for Best Undergraduate Paper: Bridget LaPorte, Kaley Scheppler, and Olivia Thomas

​​​​​​
College of Liberal Arts Awards

• Contributions to the Objectives and Public Image of the College Award: Brenden Jacoby
• Outstanding Achievement in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award: Lily Rivas
• Service to the Community Award: Wendy Miyazaki

​​​​​

---

Faculty & Staff News

Dr. Jnan Blau
Dr. Blau recently presented at the second interdisciplinary Phish Studies academic conference, which was hosted by Oregon State University on May 17-19, 2024. Dr. Blau is one of the founders of the conference, was on the conference planning committee, and chaired the performance selection committee. The conference was a truly inter- and cross-disciplinary affair, with presentations by scholars and intellectuals from, to name a few: law/legal theory, art history, musicology, theatre, performance studies, literary theory, business, psychology, counseling, and more!

Dr. Leslie Nelson
Dr. Nelson is stepping into a new leadership position and will be serving as the Associate Chair of the COMS Department for the next three years starting Fall 2024. The Associate Chair typically assists with coordinating department class scheduling, student advising, new faculty on-boarding, and program assessment while also serving on the department curriculum committee. The department also thanks Dr. Bethany Conway, who served as the Associate Chair from 2021-2024!

Promotion Announcements

Big congratulations to our COMS Department professors who were recently promoted! We're so proud of your accomplishments in teaching, research, and service. Cal Poly is honored to have you serving our students and COMS community! The following professors were promoted this year:

• Dr. David Askay was promoted to Full Professor!
• Dr. Anu Dhillon earned tenure!
• Dr. Leslie Nelson earned tenure! 

Retirement Announcements

It's always sad to say goodbye, but we're celebrating the fabulous work and accomplishments of our faculty and staff who have served Cal Poly over the years. It's bittersweet to say farewell, but we wish the following members of our COMS Department community a truly wonderful retirement!

• Dr. Lorraine Jackson retired from the COMS department at the end of Spring 2023 after a 30-year career. Since her retirement, she has continued to teach for the department as a FERP faculty member. 
• Jen Owen is retiring from her staff position as the COMS Department Administrative Support Assistant (ASA) at the end of August 2024. 
• Professor Jeremy Teitelbaum recently retired from his position as a COMS Department lecturer at the end of the winter 2024 quarter. In recognition of his many years at Cal Poly, he has been awarded Emeritus Faculty status.

 

---

Sharing is Caring

Do you have an announcement to share with COMS majors, minors, faculty, and staff? Email Dr. Brie to find out how to share it! Follow COMS on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn