Faculty Updates
Richard Besel, Ph.D.
During the last year and a half, Richard D. Besel has engaged in numerous research and teaching activities. In 2014, Besel published “Performance on Behalf of the Environment,” a collection he co-edited with Jnan A. Blau. He also published a book chapter in “Myth in the Modern World: Essays on Intersections with Ideology and Culture,” edited by David Whitt and John Perlich, and, in 2015, a co-authored article with Krista Burke and Vana Chritos in the Journal of Risk Research. He is currently working on a second co-edited collection, with Bernard K. Duffy, titled “Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in America Civic Discourse.” SUNY Press expects to release the book in late 2015. In 2013 he won the College of Liberal Arts Richard K. Simon Award for Distinguished Scholarship.
Besel has served on the new Science, Technology and Society Minors Program Advisory Committee. As part of his duties Besel chaired the working group responsible for developing the new science and risk communication minor, in addition to proposing a new Science Communication course.
In other news, Besel returned from Northern Illinois University, where he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Environment, Sustainability and Energy during fall 2014. He also recently completed his service as president of the Environmental Communication Division of the National Communication Association.
Bernard Duffy, Ph.D.
Bernard Duffy was one of two annual recipients of the University Distinguished Scholarship Award in 2012-13. He won the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003.
In the past few years he published American Voices: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Orators (2005) and “The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of African American Speakers” (2012), both with Richard Leeman. He also published a number of articles, including “Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’” and the “Politics of Cultural Memory: An Apostil,” in ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (with Richard Besel); “Recollection, Regret and Foreboding in Frederick Douglass’s ‘Fourth of July Orations of 1852 and 1875’”; the Frederick Douglass issue of Making Connections: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cultural Diversity (with Richard Besel); and “Michael Crichton, Narrative Critique and the Boundary-Work of Scientific Expertise” in StoryTelling: A Critical Journal of Popular Narrative (with Richard Besel and Renee Besel). Duffy is also completing a book with Besel, “Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse.”
Duffy returned to the role of department chair in January 2013, and, upon the recommendation of the department, was reappointed by the dean to another three-year term, commencing in fall 2015.
B. Christine Shea, Ph.D.
B. Christine Shea presented a paper, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Media (Mis)representations of Female Politicians, Female Athletes and Working Mothers” at the International Communication Association conference in Seattle, Wash. She also chaired a panel, “On Good Terms: Team and Group Interaction in Organizations.” This spring, at the International Communication Association conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Shea chaired and facilitated a panel, “Women and Girls Respond to Media: Using and Interpreting Media Texts and Spaces.”
Shea recently served as a reviewer for the journal, Communication Reports, and for the International Communication Association’s Feminist Scholarship and Sports Communication divisions.
This year, Shea received a Mustang Mentor and Outstanding Faculty Award from the Cal Poly Women’s Basketball program. She continues to serve on the University Human Subjects Committee and the Women’s & Gender Studies Scholarship Committee.
Outside of the classroom, Shea enjoys golf, weight training, and reading non-fiction books on a variety of topics.
Jeremy Teitelbaum
In March, Jeremy Teitelbaum partnered with SPOKES of San Luis Obispo, a community service organization that helps nonprofits with training, leadership and support. He presented a workshop that assisted nonprofit employees to develop an elevator pitch to better communicate their mission statement to organizational stakeholders.
An article by Teitelbaum will be featured on the website of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, an organization representing 110,000 insurance agents and financial advisors globally. The article summarizes Teitelbaum’s research in the social cognition of communication and shares how sales people can better connect, influence and lead people.
Teitelbaum was accepted into a summer program offered at the University of Radboud in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in August 2015. He will be working with faculty from the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior to study social cognition and communication using state-of-the-art functional magnetic resonance imaging equipment. He was also accepted to speak at the International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences in London on inclusivity and diversity in social science courses, a project that he completed last year working with the Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology.