alumni story

Leah Erickson ('70) reflects on changes in interpersonal communication

By Kat Salazar

Leah Erickson worries about a future of impersonal communication in the growing digital world.

Formerly known as Maureen Bereskin when she was in school, Erickson received a master’s degree in Speech Communication in 1970 from what was then the UW Department of Speech Communication.

While in grad school, Erickson explored the importance of interpersonal non-verbal cues exchanged between individuals while communicating. “Part of understanding people is seeing how they express themselves physically while trying to communicate,” she said. With the growing use of texting and tweeting as modes of communication, Erickson worries that our abilities to communicate and understand one another as a society will suffer greatly. "I want people to have the dignity they deserve. You need to try to step inside their soul," she said. Prior to attending the UW, Erickson spent years developing a love for public speech and communicative expression. In high school she participated in public speaking contests and competitions and it was then that she first learned to present herself and her ideas. After high school, Erickson entered the University of California at Santa Barbara knowing that presentation would be something she would concentrate on. There she completed a double major in speech and theater, theater being a more artistic and expressive form of the public speaking that she had grown to love.

As a grad student at the UW, Erickson worked as a teacher's assistant in basic speech classes while further exploring the concepts of elocution, and synthetic elocution, which would later become the forerunner of automated voice recordings. Her love of theater also continued at the UW. Erickson said of Shakespeare, whose works she once performed for a local PBS channel: "How he chose the words and how he used them were so significant." One professor in particular made an impression on Erickson: Laura Crowell (*see note below). Crowell never had Erickson as a student but observed her progress as a student from afar up until graduation, when she pulled her aside and encouraged her to apply to a program abroad to further her studies. Erickson was not able to do this for financial reasons. However, she still worries that she never thanked Crowell enough for making the effort that she did to believe in her. "We have a responsibility to give back and (help) make people who they are by giving of yourself to make others stronger," said Erickson, partly about Crowell and partly about her own goals as a teacher. Erickson continues to love communicating with people face-to-face. She juggles working as a real-estate consultant and talking to people one-on-one with working as a professor at Temple University and discussing topics concerning real estate, such as the greening of historic properties, with groups of students. She also has her own business, The Appraisal Network.

"When I walk into a classroom I'm getting signals from my students immediately," said Erickson, who still uses techniques in communicating that she learned at UW every day.

Kat Salazar is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.

* The Laura Crowell Fund Run is named after Laura Crowell, a longtime and beloved former professor in the Department of Speech Communication. Students, faculty, and staff run or walk around Green Lake in return for pledged dollars of support, and funds go to students for research and travel to conferences. The support comes from alumni, friends, and family. The event is planned, coordinated, and implemented by undergraduate interns. This year the interns raised $4,000 in support of graduate students.