Letter from the Chair
23 September 2003

To: Faculty, staff and graduate students
From: Jerry Baldasty
Re: September 2003 Department News

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Welcome back. I hope you had a good summer.

New Faculty, New Graduate Students

Please welcome our new faculty members—Deborah Kaplan (Room 327), Kathy Gill (Room 251b) and Crispin Thurlow (Room 231). We’re delighted to have them with us.

Please also welcome our new graduate students. We have six new Ph.D. students: Deborah Bassett, Tresha Dutton, Irina Gendelman, Yeo Jung "Nicole" Kim, Adrienne Massanari and Dru Williams. We have eight new M.A. students: Meredith Bagley, Diane Beall, Kristina De Vadder, Heather Gorgura, Cynthia Lavoie, Alice Marwick, Leah Sprain, Catherine "Lize" Williams. We have one new Native Voices student, Steffany Suttle, and one visiting exchange student for 2003-04, Nga "Angie" Nguyen Vu.

Thanks to all of those who helped organize orientation sessions for the graduate students, TAs and RAs --- John Gastil, Patricia Moy, Laura Black, Patty Fortine, Nancy Dosmann, Eunice Yang, Maria Garrido, Clifford Tatum, Adrienne Massanari and Whitney Anspach. Presenters at the orientations: David Silver, Roger Simpson, Barbara Warnick, Meghan Dougherty, Tema Milstein, Lisa Coutu, David Domke, Eve-Anne Doohan, Jay Leighter, Kevin Coe, Danielle Endres, Pattijean Hooper, Cindy King, David Sherman, Nancy Rivenburgh, Dan Hart, Paul Ford, John Klockner and Jessica Albano.

Department Open House – Saturday, October 18, 11 to 4 p.m.

Please save the date for the first annual Department of Communication Open House, and plan to attend the key activities between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The purpose of the Open House is to showcase our new department to our alumni and other friends. So we will be emphasizing our many strengths: faculty, students, staff. There will be a series of short talks (including one by Pulitzer-Prize winning alumnus Tim Egan), short faculty and student presentations, presentations by the DART Center and tours of our facilities and the Daily. Our alumni routinely tell us that they are eager to meet faculty, so please plan to attend on the 18th.

Matching Funds for Graduate Student Support

The College is offering a 1 to 1 match for donations (up to $1,000 each) made by faculty and staff in support of graduate student activities. All gifts from faculty and staff designated for graduate student support (from July 1 through December 31) are eligible for the match. In addition, any funds pledged through payroll deduction by December 31, 2003, for payment by June 30, 2004, are also eligible for the match.

Last year, faculty and staff in the Department of Communication contributed $4,005; with last year’s College match, we raised $6,008. This money has been earmarked for graduate student travel, and we will allocate funds raised this year for the same purpose. We need a minimum of $10,000 a year to support graduate student travel; with that much money, we are just able to provide airfare for students with research papers at conferences. Ideally, we should have a graduate student travel budget of about $20,000 a year to provide help with registration fees and accommodation. Because of budget cuts, the Graduate School has stopped its annual departmental allocation of graduate student travel funds in favor of a new system in which we must apply for each travel request; there are ceilings on the level of funding the Grad School will supply ($300 for domestic airfare, $500 for international airfare). We will apply for Graduate School funds, of course, but it would be realistic to assume we will get less money from the Grad School this year than last. So donations are all the more important this year. Fortunately, given the increased matching rate, each donation made by faculty and staff will go further than earlier years.

As you know, presenting research papers at academic conferences really is extremely important for our graduate students. It gives them exposure in an important academic arena and helps build their research profile. This is important for the department’s reputation, too; having a substantial cohort of graduate students presenting research papers at major conferences is one of the best ways to demonstrate the intellectual vitality of our graduate program.

I hope that faculty and staff will contribute this year; the 1 to 1 match offered this year is a better offer than last year. Please give checks to Nancy Dosmann; make out the checks to University of Washington. You may also give online; go to the departmental web page “On Line Giving” (www.com.washington.edu/Program/giving.html) and make a donation to the Laura Crowell Fund.

Executive Committee Election

We will elect two faculty members to the Executive Committee (to join the two continuing elected members -- Nancy Rivenburgh and Gerry Philipsen—and the ex officio member, Associate Chair Valerie Manusov). Because Gerry Philipsen is on sabbatical leave during autumn quarter, we will also elect a one-quarter replacement for him. All full-time faculty are eligible for election. We will follow the same procedure as last year: The first round of voting will be at a faculty meeting (on October 8). The second round will be among the top 6 (or 7 or more in case of ties). The two with the highest number of votes in round 2 will have two-year terms; the third will take the one-quarter term.

Thanks to Richard Kielbowicz and Barbara Warnick for serving one-year terms last year as we began this new committee. Both Barbara and Richard are eligible for election to the committee.

The Executive Committee is the department’s only elected committee; it meets monthly to advise the chair on key departmental issues.

Committee assignments for 2003-4

The committees generally are the same as last year, although the number of people on each committee has declined in an effort to lighten each faculty member’s service duties.

1. Executive Committee (elected by faculty)

Continuing members: Philipsen, Rivenburgh, Manusov.
Elect two faculty to two-year terms. All faculty eligible.
Elect one faculty member for autumn quarter (while Philipsen on sabbatical).

2. Graduate Committee

Gastil, GPC and chair; members: Moy, Kielbowicz, Prosise. Staff: Fortine.

The Graduate Committee has the task of dealing with all aspects of graduate issues and policy except those given to the Professional Development Committee. Duties include: graduate admissions, quarterly review of graduate students, graduate curriculum review, general grad program policies, policy on seminars (scheduling, staffing)

3. Undergraduate Committee

Domke, UPC and chair; members: Coutu, Silver, Thurlow, Philipsen. Staff: Sherman.

This committee deals with all undergraduate issues, including but not limited to: admissions, curriculum review, work with advisers on course scheduling, student orientation, scholarships, graduation celebration.

4. Professional Development Committee

Moy, chair; Gastil, Ceccarelli.

Duties include planning and overseeing TA/RA orientation, conducting on-going TA training, assignment and evaluation of graduate student assistants (TAs, RAs, Instructors of Record), on-going professional development (e.g., brownbag sessions) for all graduate students.

5. Faculty Development/Colloquium

Rivenburgh, chair; members: Manusov, Howard, Peters, Gill, Kaplan.

This committee deals primarily with faculty careers. Its work includes tenure and promotion, general workplace environment (e.g., workload), mentoring, departmental colloquia, publicizing faculty research and other activity, faculty recognition.

6. UW relations/Inter-departmental outreach

Warnick, chair; members: Giffard, Parks, Underwood, Stamm.

Outreach to other UW departments to explore possible collaboration.

7. Journalism

Domke, head of journalism sequence and chair; members: Henderson, Kaplan, Baldasty.

Coordination of journalism sequence, course scheduling, journalism faculty meetings, outreach to media professionals, recruitment, curriculum review (in coordination with Undergraduate Committee).

8. Technology

Manusov (chair, autumn); Ceccarelli (chair, winter-spring); members: Foot, Ceccarelli, Manusov, Lau. Staff: Dosmann, Klockner.

Tasks: Development of faculty policy on technology.

9. Development and Alumni Outreach

Baldasty (chair); members: Giffard, Manusov, Fearn Banks, Simpson, Chan. Staff: Sprang.

Outside communities: coordination of alumni/development events; oversight of key development events (e.g., Crowell); alumni outreach, marketing, visiting committee, development.

10. Social

Baldasty and Manusov. Staff: Humphrey, Yang, Dosmann, Smith.

Coordination of departmental social events (such as Holiday Party).

11. Other positions

New Media Research Lab: Silver, director
DART Center: Simpson, director
MC Digital Media Program: Lau, director
RCCS: Silver, director
CCCE: Bennett, director

Development/Alumni Outreach News

The Multicultural Alumni Partnership (MAP) is awarding Communication alum Ron Chew its Distinguished Alumni Award. Ron is the director of the Wing Luke Museum, and a leader in the local Asian American community.

The autumn 2003 issue of the Department of Communication newsletter is out. Thanks to Victoria Sprang for her work on this. Thanks, too, to Paul Ford, Valerie Manusov and Nancy Dosmann for their assistance on the newsletter.

People

The summer issue of Perspectives, the College of Arts and Sciences newsletter, included an article on John Gastil. “Inspired to Vote – by Jury Duty” describes John’s work exploring the relationship between participation on a jury and participation in elections. “We saw a ten percent increase in voter participation for those involved in trials with a conclusive verdict,” said Gastil… “It suggests that if people have a rewarding civic experience in one area, their renewed sense of civic duty transfers to other areas. They become more activated as a citizen.”

Faculty teaching GEAR-UP summer courses included Kathleen Fearn-Banks, John Gastil, Dave Domke and Jerry Baldasty. Dave also helped organize the annual Faculty Fellows workshops in September.

Verena Hess, Dave Domke and Jerry Baldasty all taught sessions in the TA Conference on Teaching and Learning.

Valerie Manusov taught a Discovery seminar on “The Symbolic Value of Nonverbal Cues.” The Discovery seminars, which debuted this year, are designed for first-year students and ran this year from August 25 to September 19. The classes are especially designed to meet the needs and interests of new undergraduates while introducing them to the discovery of knowledge. Valerie was also one of the key organizers of the 25-class series.

John Klockner reports that Professional Video and Tape has given the department a $2,600 video test generator. PVT has also agreed to try to provide some additional demonstration equipment for the October 18 Open House. Microsoft has given us (via UW Educational Outreach) 23 graphics cards and 3 graphics tablets. John reports that these ordinarily retail for about $7,500; they will be used to help support the large Media Lab and other departmental facilities. Thanks to John for his work in getting these gifts.

Thanks to Paul Ford for his work on re-designing the department’s web site. Some parts of the site are still under development, but the work done so far is impressive.

Beth Kolko, Jan Spyriadakis (both from Technical Communication), David Silver and Phil Howard were awarded a $1.23 million, 5-year grant from NSF to look at the Internet and society in Central Asia. Beth is the PI, the other three are co-PIs. Congratulations!

Patricia Moy has been invited to continue as a member of the UW’s Human Subjects Review Committee. Craig Hogan, Vice Provost for Research, praised Patricia for her “diligent and dedicated efforts” on the committee. It’s a huge amount of work, and very beneficial to the department.

During the summer, Phil Howard organized the Information Technology for Development Workshop at Oxford University and received a Royalty Research Fund grant for $30,000 to build a database about information technology in developing countries. A book he edited with Steve Jones (Society Online: The Internet in Context) was published from Sage. Phil is also organizing a visit to campus by Naomi Klein.

Roger Simpson and the Dart Center are hosting a seminar for college journalism educators Sept. 26-27 at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. Faculty will explore the emotional issues that emerge in reporting violence, ways to support students who bring emotional and traumatic experience into the classroom, ethics of interviewing victims of violence and the elements of “best practice” training and support for students who cover violent events.

Five Communication graduate students participated in a recent Simpson Center event -- Connecting the Community: An Institute on the Public Humanities for Doctoral Students. Participating were Giorgia Aiello, Nancy Bixler, Irina Gendelman, Edit Manosevitch and Saskia Witteborn. Roger Simpson was one of the presenters at the conference.

Visiting Scholars

We have several Visiting Scholars who will be at the University during the 2003-4 academic year. All of these are professors at other universities who will be in Seattle at some point during the 2003-4 academic year. Below is a list of our visitors; please feel free to contact their faculty sponsors to arrange to meet them or to ask them to give a guest lecture in a class or seminar.

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