Communication - May, 2004
from Jerry Baldasty, chair

[Download a Microsoft Word version of the May, 2004 "Communication"]

Save the Date

June 3.
Undergraduate Communication Excellence Awards (featuring the Nyquist and Pioneer awards).
6:30 – 8:30 p.m., 120 Communications.

June 3.
Graduate Student Recognition Celebration.
3:30 – 4:30 p.m., 126 Communications.

June 10.
Departmental graduation celebration.
11:30 a.m.- 1:30 p.m., HUB Ballroom.

Research

Richard Kielbowicz and Linda Lawson. (2004). “Unmasking Hidden Commercials in Broadcasting: Origins of the Sponsorship Identification Regulations, 1927-1963.” Federal Communications Law Journal (March 2004) 56:2.

Kaplan, D. (2004, forthcoming). “Shadow Republic: The concept of place in patriot movement discourse.” In Sudeep Dasgupta (ed). Transnational Culture and the politics of identity. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Thurlow, C., and Brown, A. (2003). “Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people’s text-messaging.” Discourse Analysis Online. http://www.shu.ac.uk.daol/

Thurlow, C., and Jaworski, A. (2003). “Communicating a global reach: Inflight magazines as a globalizing genre in tourism.” Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 581-608.

Manusov, V. and Koenig J, Trees, A. (2004). “Do Unto Others…? Conversational moves and perceptions of attentiveness toward other face in accounting sequences between friends.” Human Communication Research (forthcoming).

Howard, P.N., and Garrido, M. (2003). “Software Technology and Social Development Policy: Scenarios for Preventing Software Dependency and Encouraging Ingenuity,” in Monroe Price, Ed., Technology and Standards in the Public Interest: Comparing Values and Approaches to Code as Law (forthcoming).

Philipsen, G. and Leighter, J. (2004). “’Tell’ in After Mr. Sam.” In Francois Cooren, Ed., Interacting and Organizing: Analyses of a Board Meeting. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Howard, P.N., and Milstein, T. (2003). “Spiders, Spam and Spyware: New Media and the Market for Political Information,” in Mia Consalvo, Ed., Internet Studies 1.0.

Bennett, W.L. (2004). News: The Politics of Illusion, 6th edition (in press)

Bennett, W.L. (2004). “Global Media and Politics: Transnational Communication Regimes and Civic Cultures.” Annual Review of Political Science (7: 125-148).

Lau, T.Y. with Atkin D. (2004, forthcoming). “Local and Long Distance Telephone (POTS)” in A. Grant and J. Meadows, eds., Communication Technology Update, 8th edition.

Warnick, B. (2004). “Rehabilitating AI: Argument Loci and the Case for Artificial Intelligence.” Argumentation 18 (2), 149-170.

Ceccarelli, L. (2004). “Neither Confusing Cacophony nor Culinary Complements: A Case Study of Mixed Metaphors for Genomic Science.” Written Communication 21:1 (92-105).

Chan, A.B. (2004). “Sina.com: A Chinese World View and Rhetorical Analysis in Cyberspace,” Asian Profile 32:2 (95-107), with Lawrence M. Massey.

Silver, D. (2004). “Selling Cyberspace: Constructing and Deconstructing the Rhetoric of Community.” Southern Communication Journal (forthcoming).

Fearn-Banks, K. (2004) “From Professional to Professor,” Public Relations Quarterly.
Gastil, J. (2004, forthcoming). “Marketing sobriety: Using the Theory of Reasoned Action to design DWI prevention messages.” In Advances in Psychology Research Hauppauge, NY: Nova Scientific.

Moy, P., and Scheufele, D.A. (2004, forthcoming). “A mass media perspective on the formation of public opinion.” In J.G. Geer (ed.). Public opinion and polling around the world: A historical encyclopedia.

Tewksbury, D., Moy, P., & Weis, D.S. (2004). “Preparations for Y2K: Revisiting the behavioral component of the third-person effect.” Journal of Communication, 54, 138-155.

Wulff, D.H. , Austin, A.E., et al. (2004). Paths to the professoriate: Strategies for enriching the preparation of future faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Awards

Leah Ceccarelli’s book, Shaping Science with Rhetoric: The Cases of Dobzhansky,
Schrodinger, and Wilson (University of Chicago Press, 2001), has won the Rhetoric Society of America Book Award. The award is for a distinguished book-length contribution to scholarship in Rhetorical Studies authored by a member of the Society and published within the past two years. Leah will receive her award at the RSA conference later this month in Austin.

Jerry Baldasty has been named Distinguished Educator of the Year by the Mass Communication and Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Jerry will receive an award at the AEJMC conference in Toronto in August, and give the division’s keynote address for its teaching workshops.

The Crowell Fund Run

The annual Crowell Fund Run was held Saturday, May 15, at Green Lake (with a picnic afterward at Woodland Park). More than 40 attended --- faculty, students (both undergraduate and graduate) and friends of the Department. The Fund Run was a huge success – with a profit of $3,400 (exceeding the student organizers’ goals). These funds will support graduate student travel for academic conferences.

The event was organized by a team of four students – undergraduates Britta Smith, Czarina Chan and Stuart Sakoda, and graduate student Virginia Pellegrino. The team obtained substantial funding from the GPSS and enlisted sponsors for prizes and refreshments. The prizes included a gift certificate for the Westin Hotel (two nights free), gift certificates from the University Book Store, a football signed by the Husky football team, a gift certificate from Shultzy’s on the Ave, and several other items.

Many thanks to all who made this event so successful. Thanks, first, to the wonderful team ---- Britta, Czarina, Stuart, and Virginia – for a superb job creating and promoting the event. Thanks, too, to Victoria Sprang, who worked as the departmental liaison with the student team. Thanks to those who walked, ran and roller-bladed around Green Lake, and to those who sponsored them.

Thanks to faculty and staff: John Gastil, Valerie Manusov, Gerry Philipsen, Nancy Rivenburgh, Barbara Warnick, Lisa Coutu, Leah Ceccarelli, Dave Domke, Richard Kielbowicz, Kathy Gill, Mike Henderson, Jerry Baldasty, Phil Howard, David Silver, Crispin Thurlow, Kirsten Foot, Roger Simpson, Nancy Dosmann, Patty Fortine, Sharon Redeker, David Sherman.

Thanks to graduate students: Giorgia Aiello, Whitney Anspach, Dana Bagley, Meredith Bagley, Deborah Bassett, Laura Black, Kevin Coe, Lori Joubert, Karen Cunliffe-Korp, Kate Dunsmore, Tresha Dutton, Danielle Endres, Maria Garrido, Irina Gendelman, Erica Graham, Kathy Hall, Pattijean Hooper, Cynthia Lavoie, Jay Leighter, Sue Lockett-John, Edith Manosevitch, Adrianne Massanari, Melissa Meade, Katherine Oleson, Virginia Pellegrino, Leah Sprain, Clifford Tatum, Dru Williams.

And thanks to our friends: Jessica Albano, Carla Rickerson, Cindy Simmons, Cathy Schwartz, Sharon Morris, Ofer Manosevitch, Brad Huskinson, Lyn Goerginger, Aleutina Gall, Randy Beam, Julie Anderson, Fred Bretsch, Suzanne Gillette, Michael O’Connell, Al John, Ernie and Barbara Williams, Cricket Keating, Scott Sprain and Carole Svensson.

And thanks to our alumni who supported the Fund Run this year: Phil Logan, Hazel Warlaumont, Betty Winfield, Karan Dawson, Gary Ruud, Jody Koenig, Lyall Crawford, Jane Halsey, Valerie Warden, Keiko Tanaka, John Adams, Stephanie Cohn, James Hanson, Jeffrey Philpott, Brooke Quigley and Rebecca Snellenberg.

Conferences

Ceccarelli, L. “Applying Theory to Criticism,” Rhetoric Society of America, Austin, TX, May 2004.

Ceccarelli, L. “Celeste Condit’s Contribution to Rhetorical Inquiry,” Rhetoric Society of America, Austin TX, May 2004.

Patricia Moy recently attended a joint conference of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) and the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in Phoenix. For WAPOR, she was a discussant for a panel, "World Opinion: Public Opinion around the Globe" and served as the conference committee chair for the organization. For AAPOR: she is a Council member, chaired one session, and had one paper presented by co-authors Mike Xenos and Verena Hess. The paper was: "Communication and Citizenship: Mapping the Political Effects of Infotainment."

Kathy Gill presented her paper, “How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?” at WWW2004 - The 13th International World Wide Web Conference on May 18.

Doug Underwood. “The Problem with Paul: Seeds of the Culture Wars and the Dilemma for Journalists.” Fourth Annual International conference on Media, Religion and Culture, Louisville, September 2004.

ComGSA held a Spring Mini-Conference May 19 at the Simpson Center. The conference consisted of a poster session displaying graduate students’ work-in-progress and an oral presentation practice session for ICA.

International Communication Association

Kirsten Foot, “Web Sphere Analysis: An Approach for Studying Online Action” with Steven M. Schneider

Phil Howard, “Wireless Networking in the Developing World: Lessons from Three Projects”

Patricia Moy, “Political effects of infotainment: Priming the last-night audience”

Giorgia Aiello, “The MEDIA Programme and the construction of a Unitary European Audiovisual Identity” and “Seattle’s Pike Place Market (de)constructed. An analysis of tourist narratives about a public space” with Irina Gendelman

Ted Coopman, “In Search of Dissentworks: Charting Emergent Resistance Networks”
“Obey Little, Resist Much; Dissent Networks and Distributed Resistance”

Natalie Debray, “French or Foe? Media Routines and the Fueling of Anti-French Sentiment”

Meghan Dougherty, “Collective constructions of Campaign Web Sites: Adapting content Analysis for Understanding the Structure of the Web”

Irina Gendelman, “Communication and Broken Windows: Graffiti Debates” and “Seattle’s Pike Place Market (de) constructed: An analysis of tourist narratives about a public space” with Giorgia Aiello

Erica Graham, “The Policy Web: Construction: Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, and Justification Rhetoric of the Bush Administration”

Verena Hess, “Political effects of Infotainment: Priming the late night audience” with Patricia Moy and Mike Xenos

Sue Lockett John, “From September to Saddam: George W. Bush, Strategic Communications, and the War on Terrorism”

Adrienne Massanari, “ ‘I hate my teachers’: Freedom of expression and public school students’ Websites”

Melissa Meade, “Broadcasting Femininity: The ‘All-Girl Radio’ of WHER-AM”

Clifford Tatum, “Comparative Spatiality: Underground Art in Cyberspace” and a High Density Panel: “Is there a there here? Cultural Resistance in Cyberspace”

Quoted in the Press

Kirsten Foot was quoted extensively in a May 10 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on Internet use (“We skim, scan and surf -- so slow down already.”) The article quoted Kirsten as saying that society is in "scan mode," which does not invite reflection. The article continued:

"How can we contemplate if we're constantly interrupted and preoccupied?" asks Kirsten Foot, an assistant professor in UW's Communication Department who studies the relationship of communication technologies and society. Our "scan mode," she says, does not invite reflection. "We're spending more time dealing with 'what' and 'how' questions, and less time considering 'what for,' 'what if' or 'why.' " Foot says she has had to approach her own life with a new [intentionality] to break out of scan mode. She schedules daily walks, attends weekly worship services, forces herself to read a book, stop on a sentence she likes, write it down, memorize it, close the book, walk away and think about it throughout the day. Once a month, she gets away to the outdoors -- sans cell and laptop. "Several years ago, I was taking a two-week backpack trip and my supervisor asked me, 'How can I get in touch with you?' I told him I would be in the mountains, with no cell phone. I realized how radical that was for him. It just blew his mind."

The article was prompted by a speech by Bill McKibben, author of “Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age.” Kirsten was a member of a panel discussing the role of information and information technologies in our lives --- following McKibben’s talk on May 10.

David Domke was quoted in a May 13 Seattle Times article on the television show Frasier (“Condo by condo, Seattle has become a lot like 'Frasier' “). Kay McFadden wrote:

Do local citizens consciously set out to imitate a television show, a notion that sounds more like the science fiction "Outer Limits" than "Frasier"? According to David Domke, communication professor at the University of Washington, the answer is yes. Domke teaches and studies the effects of media on society. And his theory boils down to this: a TV-conferred identity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. "When a show associated with a particular city becomes a hit, it projects that city's persona to large audiences," said Domke. "Viewers see 'Frasier,' and they expect that when they visit. "Then the people who are here begin to find there's money to be made from fitting that image."

Alumni Outreach

Jerry Baldasty met with about 20 Washington, D.C.,-area alumni on April 15 at a reception hosted by Congressional Quarterly president and publisher (and Communication alum) Robert Merry.
Jerry also attended the Executive Committee meeting of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma in New York City on April 14.

The Department sponsored three career workshops during spring quarter. Kathleen Miller, class of 1987, organized the May 4 and 11 workshops, with assistance from Communication student Kim Freeman and outreach coordinator Victoria Sprang. Thanks to all three of them for their work.

May 4: Jacque Coe, public relations manager for the Washington State Lottery, and Cathy MacCaul, Communications manager for Microsoft Community Affairs, spoke on May 4 on networking and interviewing. They spoke on ways to prepare for written and team-style interviews.

May 11: Two alumni – Doug Tolmie (from the School of Communications) and Mike Weigand (from the Department of Speech Communication) -- led a 2-hour workshop for approximately 40 students on how to plan for careers in communication. Doug Tolmie worked for KOMO-TV for 25 years before starting his own communications training, event production and media consulting firm. Mike Weigand is the deputy communications director, executive communications, for Governor Gary Locke. Mike earned his B.A., in English and in Speech Communication, his M.A. in Speech Communication and a degree in law from the University of Washington.

May 14: Two alumni – Teddie Gibbon and John Bravakis – spoke to about 60 students on how to prepare for a wide variety of careers in communications and related fields. Teddie Gibbon is Vice President and TV Station Manager for KXLY TV in Spokane. Her brother, John Bravakis, is Executive Vice President for Triage Entertainment in Los Angeles. Attending the session was Alex Gibbon, Teddie’s daughter; Alex will be graduating in June with a B.A. in Communication.

Other alumni who have visited campus recently include:

Professor Bob McChesney (University of Illinois). Bob – founder, president and board chairman of Freepress (www.freepress.net)--- met with department faculty, students and staff on May 6 to talk about his work. He also spoke at Kane Hall that day on “The Problem of the Media.”

Neil McReynolds -- former editor of the Bellevue American (now the Eastside Journal), press secretary and top aide to Gov. Dan Evans, a long time civic leader, former vice president for corporate relations of Puget Sound Power and Light (now Puget Sound Energy), president of the Rainier Club, past board chair of Seattle-King County Economic Development Council, Washington Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Eastern Washington University ------ visited the department May 6.

Don Kraft, long-time advertising executive and former president of the UW Alumni Association, and major organizer of the Fred Baker scholarship, attended the department’s scholarship convocation May 18 as did Bruce Baker, class of 1954, son of Fred Baker.

Beth Erickson, class of 1963. Beth, who recently retired as Clark County bureau chief for The Oregonian, attended our annual scholarships celebration on May 18.

UW Speech Communication Ph.D. alum Randy Hirokawa, professor and chair of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, received a Collegiate Teaching Award from the University of Iowa College of Arts and Sciences. The award is given to faculty members who have demonstrated “unusually significant and meritorious achievement in teaching.”

UW Speech Communication Ph.D. alum Ann Darling, Department of Communication chair at the University of Utah, has received a $6,000 grant (with two colleagues) from the Council of Graduate Schools and the Ford Foundation to study the feasibility of developing a professional master’s degree in conflict resolution.

UW Communications Ph.D. alum Jennifer Henderson, an assistant professor at Trinity University (San Antonio), has received a Trinity University Award for outstanding accomplishments in teaching and research. The University usually gives these awards to more senior faculty, so this is an especially significant honor.

Departmental Assignments

Barbara Warnick will serve as undergraduate program coordinator in 2004-5 and Patricia Moy will be graduate program coordinator. Leah Ceccarelli will take over as chair of the Professional Development Committee. Many thanks to the faculty who have served in these roles during the past few years: John Gastil for the graduate program, David Domke for the undergraduate program, and Patricia Moy for the Professional Development Committee. Their dedication, energy and thoughtful leadership have contributed greatly to our program. Committee assignments for next year will be announced in September.

The Dart Center

The Dart Center has been honored as a finalist in the Association of Education Publishers Distinguished Achievements Awards in the Information Website category. Dart website designer Adam Welch has led a redesign of the site, featuring resources for journalists and educators. Winners will be announced in Alexandria, VA., on June 8.

A standing-room only crowd attended the 11th annual Dart Award presentation at City University of New York on April 14. Providence Journal reporter Kate Bramson accepted the award for "Rape in A Small Town." Also honored were representatives from the BBC, which received Dart's Distinguished Achievement Award. The event featured a panel discussion on Ethics of Covering Violence moderated by Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On the Media. For more on both the award and the panel, see www.dartcenter.org.

Dart Executive Director Roger Simpson spoke at Seattle Town Hall April 22 on "How We All Suffer When News is Bad.”

The Dart Center, along with The Carter Presidential Center, will host a showcase panel on "Meeting the Challenges of Investigating Mental Health and Trauma Issues” at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference June 17-20 in Atlanta. Speakers include Jane Hansen of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kristin Lombardi, a reporter for The Boston Phoenix and a Dart Ochberg Fellow, author Susan O'Malley, and Dr. Jonathan Shay of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Dart Center’s programs continue to grow, due in large part to the substantial increase in funding for the Center from the Dart Foundation. The Center is now overly crowded, so it will be adding some space later this year, in Room 244. Mike Henderson, who has had that office, will move to 337.

Communication Alumni Hall of Fame

Members of the inaugural class of the Communication Alumni Hall of Fame were chosen from faculty nominations. The Alumni Hall of Fame will be dedicated at our autumn Open House on October 7.

Assunta Ng, publisher, Chinese Post, Northwest Asian Weekly, MA, Speech Communication, 1979.

Christine Gregoire, attorney general, state of Washington. BA Speech Communication, 1969.

Norman Rice, former city council member, mayor, president of the Federal Home Loan Bank. BA, Communications, 1972.

Dr. Tamar Katriel, Professor, Department of Communication, University of Haifa. Speech Communication: M.A., 1980, Ph.D. 1983.

Dr. Jerilyn McIntyre, president, Central Washington University. Communications, Ph.D., 1973.

Jody Nyquist, emeritus faculty member UW, BA, Speech Communication, 1960.

Kathleen Miller, public relations agency owner, dedicated alumna, BA, Communications, 1987.

Ron Chew, executive director, Wing Luke Asian Museum; Former editor, International Examiner; member National Council on the Humanities; founder of the Chinese Oral History Project of Seattle. BA, Communications, 2002.

David Horsey, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, BA, Communications, 1975.

Steve Pool, broadcaster, civic leader, BA, Communications, 1977.

Eric Nalder, investigative reporter for the Seattle Times, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, BA, Communications, 1968.

James King, retired Senior VP and Executive Editor of the Seattle Times. BA, Journalism, 1948.

Mort Lachman, writer for Bob Hope and a longtime television producer. BA, Journalism, 1939

Robert Merry, President and Publisher, Congressional Quarterly Inc. BA, Communications, 1968.

Assunta Ng will give the key note address at the October 7 Open House.

Other visitors

Carol Vu, editor of the North West Asian Weekly, visited through a Washington Newspaper Publishers Association visiting editor program on May 3. Carol met with students in the Community Journalism: News Lab course. Thanks to Mike Henderson for arranging this.

Paul Andrews, the technology columnist for the Seattle Times, was a guest speaker in Kathy Gill’s COM 597 Writing and Presentation for Digital Media class on May 11.

Dawn Dietrich spoke on “Framing the Digital Image: Trin T. Minh-Ha’s ‘The Fourth Dimension,” on May 12 as part of the Digital Media Working Group series funded by the Simpson Center. Thanks to David Silver and Kirsten Foot for their work with DMWG.

James Patrick, director, policy and regulatory affairs, from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Ottawa, visited Tony Chan’s digital journalism class on May 24.

The September Project

From David Silver:

“The September Project continues to grow at a quick pace. As a brief reminder, on Saturday, September 11, 2004, people across the U.S. will come together at public places like local libraries to discuss ideas that matter. Through talks, roundtables, and performances, we will share ideas about democracy, citizenship, and patriotism. The libraries are the perfect infrastructure: they are free, they are open to the public, and they are distributed nationally. There are 16,000 public libraries and this does not include university, research, K-12, and places of worship libraries. The September Project is a collection of people, groups, and organizations devoted to make this happen.

“Our momentum is building. To date, we are working with 30 participating libraries located in 12 different states. Our libraries include urban and rural libraries, large and small university libraries, K-12 libraries, and libraries that serve hearing and visual disabled. They represent the following states: Alabama, California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington. We are discussing plans with folks in Canada, Chile, Spain, and the UK to expand the project internationally. We continue to work with multiple partners including the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. On a local level, we are working, so far, with Seattle Public Library: Central Library (which opened last weekend to international acclaim), Seattle Public Library: Green Lake Branch, University of Washington Libraries, and Bastyr University Library.

“To help chart our progress and to help us focus on particular regions, John Klockner has developed a database-driven map that visualizes participating libraries. The map, which we hope will grow from national to international soon, can be seen here.

Please feel free to bookmark! Co-directors David Silver and Sarah Washburn thank John and his
staff for their tireless help on this effort. More information.

People

Tony Chan will do a book reading and signing at Elliot Bay Bookstore in June – from his recently published book Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong, 1905-1961. On May 1-2, he gave an invited lecture in an Anna May Wong Retrospective at the Vancouver Public Library and Pacific Cinemateque, Asian Heritage Month.

Kathy Gill coordinates a monthly networking lunch for Digital Eve Seattle.

Kathleen Fearn-Banks is a member of the UW’s search committee for a new athletic director. She spoke at Central Washington University in April on “Rumor-Caused Crises.”

Deb Kaplan was a preliminary judge for the 2004 Dart Award.

Mac Parks is executive manager of the Provost’s Review of Research Infrastructure and chair of the Royalty Research Fund.

Crispin Thurlow spoke at a departmental colloquium on May 5. His talk was titled, “The Gift of the enemy. Breaking the spells of Intercultural Communication: The politics of difference and the outsider within.” Crispin has been invited to be a member of the advisory board of the new Q Center at UW.

The Rhetoric and Critical Studies Reading Group met May 19 to discuss an article by Kevin Deluca and former UW grad student Jen Peeples, "From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy, Activism, and the 'Violence' of Seattle." The article appeared in 2002 in Critical Studies in Media Communication (volume 19(2), pp. 125-151); it won the National Communication
Association's Golden Monograph award in 2003.

Jerry Baldasty was a guest on Steve Scher’s KUOW Weekday in April. He appeared with Graduate School Associate Dean Johnnella Butler to talk about diversity in graduate education. Jerry is a member of the faculty advisory board for the Graduate School’s Graduate Opportunities and Minority Achievement Program (GO-MAP). Jerry also spoke at the Chairs’ Workshop on the UW Development Campaign; other speakers were William H. Gates II, Connie Kravas (VP for Development and Alumni Relations) and David Notkin, chair of Computer Science and Engineering. Jerry is also serving on the university review committee for School of Nursing Dean Nancy Woods, on a recertification committee for UW athletics, on an Alumni Association committee on diversity, on the advisory board for the Alumni Association’s Columns magazine, and is completing a term as vice president of the Board of Trustees of the University Book Store.

April Peterson was awarded a Stroum Endowed Minority Fellowship for 2004-5. This prestigious award is administered by the UW Graduate School’s Graduate Opportunities and Minority Achievement Program (GO-MAP) and was made possible through the generosity of the Stroum Family Foundation. Congratulations.

Kathy Gill, our newly elected faculty senator, will also be a member of the Faculty Council on University Relations starting next year, for a three-year term.

Cindy King – who defended her dissertation on May 19 -- has accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Management and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The position involves half time scholarly research and half time teaching, with a heavy emphasis on policy-oriented and applied research. Congratulations.

Valerie Manusov has been a member of the UW team working on a new TA/RA contract.

T.Y. Lau has received partial funding from and collaboration with Real Networks to launch an annual survey on “The Future of Digital Media.”

In the Spring break, Crispin Thurlow was an invited speaker during Bowling Green State University’s annual Communication Studies Week. (Crispin was there also as the guest of American Culture Studies and Leisure and Tourism Studies.) With generous sponsorship from BGSU’s Darl Ault Visiting Lecture Fund and the Florence and Jesse Currier Endowment, he gave two lectures and a public talk titled “New (inter)national identities? Media discourse, tourism and globalization.”

Our official Department of Communication softball team, the Sandbaggers, led by Coach Dru Williams, won its first playoff game, but lost in the second. Team members included: Dru Williams, Heather Gorgura, Jay Leighter, John Gastil, Julia Anderson, Julie Wasser,
Kathy Gill, Kevin Coe, Kevin Wang, Laura Black, Leah Sprain, Marcos Torres, Maria Garrido & Amilcar, Meredith Bagley, Steve Pfaff (from Sociology) and Cindy Simmons (Law).

[Download a Microsoft Word version of the May, 2004 "Communication"]