Presenter Matt McGarrity, left, with recipients of the Jody Deering Nyquist Award for Excellence in Public Speaking: Nolan Heintz, Danielle Shoemake and Andy Chow.

student news

Kristy Hogue presents research at national undergraduate conference

Undergraduate Kristy Hogue presented her work at the 24th annual National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Missoula, Mont., last spring. Kristy is one of only six UW students attending this year's NCUR conference. She is an Honors student in the Department working under the mentorship of Crispin Thurlow on a project titled Short-Term Study Abroad: Road to Global Citizenship? Her thesis uses critical discourse analysis to examine how students recall and make sense of their interactions with local people while studying abroad.

Student covers WaMu testimony in D.C. with Kirsten Grind

As an editorial intern for the Puget Sound Business Journal, undergrad Kelly Gilblom joined award-winning reporter Kirsten Grind in Washington, D.C., to cover WaMu's testimony before Congress.

Monique Lacoste wins UW Excellence in Teaching Award

Monique Lacoste is a recipient of a UW 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award, given to graduate teaching assistants who demonstrate outstanding skills in the classroom. Lacoste recently accepted a job as Director of Programming and Education at a non-profit called Youth Media Project, in Santa Fe, NM. Read more about Monique and her award >>

Justin Reedy receives Madeline Jones Campbell Scholarship

Graduate student Justin Reedy received the Mortar Board Alumni/Tolo Foundation’s 2010-11 Madeline Jones Campbell Scholarship, which recognizes outstanding scholarship, leadership and service in graduate and undergraduate students.

Fahed Al-Sumait Receives Fulbright-Hays Fellowship

Graduate student Fahed Al-Sumait received a Fulbright-Hays fellowship for his dissertation research this year. Fahed is in Kuwait collecting research for his dissertation on contested discourses over the issue of Arab democratization. His emphasis is on Islamists, female political actors, and self-described democrats, all of whom bring particular agendas and perspectives to Middle Eastern politics. The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship is awarded to fewer than 150 students nationwide each year and is designed to provide opportunities for graduate students to engage in full-time dissertation research abroad in modern foreign language and area studies.

Crosscut publishes Katie McVicker's article on health-care reform

Undergrad Katie McVicker had a story posted on crosscut.com: "Health-care reform bringing relief to Washington students."

Students win AWC scholarships

The Association for Women in Communications (AWC) Seattle chapter awarded $3,000 in scholarships to UW Communication undergrads Nicole Breitenstein and Katie Ormsby.

MCDM student wins UW Business Plan Competition

MCDM student Jon Hickey and his team won the UW's 2010 Business Plan Competition. The UW Business Plan Competition is sponsored by the Foster School's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Hickey and his team competed with 92 Business Plans from 15 different universities. Read more at Techflash >>

Undergraduates participate in annual research symposium

Ten of the 750 students presenting at the annual UW Undergraduate Research Symposium were Communication students. The Symposium is a chance for undergraduates to present what they have learned through their research experiences to a larger audience. The Symposium also provides a forum for students, faculty, and the community to discuss cutting-edge research topics and to examine the connection between research and education.

Academic honor society invites 16 Communication students to join

Phi Beta Kappa invited 16 Communication students to join UW's Alpha chapter. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most respected undergraduate honors organization in the U.S.

Communication major carries gonfalon at commencement

Nick Trost (spring 2010 graduate) carried the Arts & Sciences gonfalon at the UW’s commencement ceremony in June. A gonfalon is a banner and the term comes from medieval times. The schools and colleges of the University of Washington each have their own gonfalons, and they are carried into commencement by honored students. The commencement gonfaloniers announce the arrival of the various colleges and schools to participate in graduation. This is a huge honor and we are proud of Nick for his service.

Crowell Run brings in $5,000 for grad students

The Crowell Fund Run interns raised $5,000 for graduate students this year. 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 alums, friends, and family. The event is planned, coordinated, and implemented by the undergraduate interns. The 2010 Crowell interns: Laura Robison, Jennifer Purugganan, Cassandra Grob, Jenny Kerechek.

Students awarded $100,000 in scholarships

The Department of Communication held its 2010 Scholarship Awards Ceremony in Communications 120 on May 6. About $100,000 in scholarship money was awarded to 39 undergraduate scholarship recipients.

Excellence Awards recognize student research, speaking, journalism

The Department held the 2010 Excellence in Communication Awards, featuring the Jody Deering Nyquist Excellence in Public Speaking and Excellence in Undergraduate Research awards and the Pioneer Newspapers Excellence in Journalism awards, in late May.

The top three finalists in the Department’s annual public speaking competition gave their speeches in front of friends, family and Department faculty at the event:
Nolan Heintz: “An Argument Against Seattle’s Aggressive Panhandling Ordinance”
Andy Chow: “An Argument Against the Mandatory U-PASS Purchase”
Danielle Shoemaker: “An Argument for Abolishing Capital Punishment (SB-5476)”

Read more about the public speeches, the seven Research award recipients, and the seven Pioneer award recipients >> Samples of their work, including a video journalism project, are included.

Dream Team scholars inspire high school students to go to college

Communication undergrads Italiana Hughes and Nancy Tran are members of the Dream Team, which is a group of UW students dedicated to offering inspiration and practical knowledge to high-school students who ought to be heading for higher education but are not. In the four years since the project was launched, it has attracted an impressive group of dedicated and enthusiastic UW students and they run, with the help of their faculty advisor, Professor Stan Chernicoff, an intricate operation with big goals. Italiana and Nancy were Dream Team Scholars in high school and in 2010 the UW graduating class will include Dream Scholars for the first time. Read more about The Dream Team project >>

Team wins Google Research award for work on virality of information

Graduate student Muzammil Hussain is on the UW interdisciplinary research team that won the Google Research award. The Virality of Information team, known as retroV, consists of iSchool Assistant Professor Karine Barzilai-Nahon and three iSchool Ph.D. students (Shawn Walker, Jeff Hemsley and Sheryl Day), Communication Ph.D. student Muzammil Hussain and Professor W. Lance Bennett. With the guidance of Professor Bennett, Muzammil’s project started back in fall 2008 to study social media during the presidential election — particularly the dynamics of election viral video diffusion. The interdisciplinary team started meeting in spring 2009. The Google Research Fund mainly supports technology costs and conference travel for the project; additionally, it gives them free access to Google and YouTube data, which will help them perfect their models to understand the relationships between viral information diffusion and the blogosphere. They presented their findings at an academic conference at Oxford: http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/ipp2010/