Department of Communication - University of Maryland

Department of Communication faculty and graduate students attended the annual convention of the Eastern Communication Association in Providence, Rhode Island.

Professor James Klumpp was named an ECA Teaching Fellow at the convention awards ceremony where associate professor Trevor Parry-Giles received the Past Presidents/Officers Award for scholarship and service to the association. Also at the awards ceremony, associate professor Mari Boor Tonn was named an ECA Research Fellow.

Graduate students Tim Barney and Abbe Depretis were also recognized for their scholarship by appearing on the Top Papers Panel in Rhetoric & Public Address.

Parry-Giles was nominated as First Vice-President-Elect of ECA. If elected, he would plan the 2010 ECA convention in Baltimore and would serve as the President of ECA for 2011. To read Parry-Giles's candidate statement, click here.

Bowen Wins Two Top Paper Awards at ICA

Dr. Shannon A. Bowen has received two Top Paper Awards from the International Communication Association. They will be presented at the 2007 ICA convention in San Francisco at the Top Paper session of the Public Relations Division. The highest-ranking Top Paper of the division was coauthored with UMD Ph.D. student Hua Jiang (who also won a top student paper for a different study) and is titled: "Ethical Decision Making in Issues Management Within a Nonprofit Activist Coalition."

Dr. Bowen's second top paper is single-authored research on the role of ethics counselor in a dominant coalition of an organization. Colleagues and graduate students of Maryland are welcome to attend the top-papers session, in which two other Maryland Ph.D.-alumni (MinJung Sung and Sung-Un Yang) will also present a top paper. Maryland faculty, alumni, and our current PhD student Hua Jiang authored 3 of the 4 numerically-scored top papers in the Public Relations Division this year.

M. Liu receives "Best Article" Awards and a Top Paper Award

Assistant Pofessor Meina Liu, with coauthor Patrice Buzzanell, received the Outstanding Scholarly Article Award from the Applied Communication Division of the National Communication Association at the annual conference in San Antonio, Texas in November 2006. Their article, entitled "Struggling with maternity leave policies and practices: A poststructuralist feminist analysis of gendered organizing" appeared as lead article in the February 2005 issue of the Journal of Applied Communication Research. This article also received the Outstanding Published Article Award from the Organization for the Study of Culture, Language, and Gender in the annual conference in St. Louis, Missouri in October 2006.

In addition, Liu was recently notified that she is the recipient of the Top Paper Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the International Communication Association, along with her dissertation adviser Steve Wilson. Her paper, to be presented at the ICA annual convention in San Francisco in May 2007, is entitled "A Cross-cultural Investigation of the Influence of Anger and Compassion on Multi-stage Negotiation Performance."

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2005-2006

Bateman Team Scores Top Five Finish

The University of Maryland's Bateman Competition Team is one of five team judged as finalists in the 2006 Bateman Competition, sponored by the Public Relations Student Society of America. 59 teams were entered into the competition, with each team creating a campaign for Habitat for Humanity. The other finalists included Illinois State University, Lee University, Loyola University (LA), and the University of South Carolina.

Department Faculty, Alums Receive "Best Article" Award

Department professors Edward L. Fink and Deborah A. Cai, along with department graduate alumni Sungeun Chung, Mark Van Dyke and current graduate student Jeong-Nam Kim received the Best Article Award from the Communication & Social Cognition Division of the National Communication Association. Their article, entitled "The Semantics of Social Influence: Threats vs. Persuasion," appeared in the December 2003 issue of Communication Monographs. This is the second time in three years that Fink and Cai have received this award.

Krueger to Receive Top Paper Award

M.A. graduate student Ben Krueger was recently notified that he is the co-recipient of the "Student Paper of the Year Award" from the Religious Communication Association. His paper, to be presented at the annual convention of the RCA (held in conjunction with the National Communication Association convention), is entitled ""Strategic Prophecy and the Rhetoric of Arab Pan-nationalism."

J. Grunig Awarded the Alexander Hamilton Medal

Professor emeritus James Grunig has been named the 2005 recipient of the Alexander Hamilton Medal for lifetime contributions to the practice of public relations. The medal is presented by the Institute for Public Relations. Grunig is the first educator to win this award which is the highest honor bestowed by the Institute. The Hamilton Medal will be presented to Grunig at the Institute's 44th Annual Distinguished Lecture & Award Dinner, November 10 at the Yale Club in New York City.

Thompson Receives Paper Awards

M.A. graduate student Tiffany Thompson recently received recognition for her research. Her essay entitled "The Rival Narratives of the Supreme Court Case: Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers," has been selected by the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research to receive the 2005 David R. Maines Narrative Research Award. This award is given to research that extends or amplifies David R. Maines' work on narrative. Thompson was also named a laureate in the James R. Golden essay competition for her paper entitled "Wit, Humor, and Ridicule: The Enigma within George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric."

Grunigs Receive Leadership Award

Professors Emeriti James Grunig and Larissa Grunig have won the Lloyd B. Dennis Distinguished Leadership Award of the Public Affairs & Government Section of the Public Relations Society of America. They will receive the award for "an exemplary invidivual who uses his or her public affairs skills to promote truth, demonstrates high standards of integrity and honesty in business dealings, and who has helped affect positive change within an organization" at the PRSA International Conference this November in Miami.

Bowen Authors Top-Ranked Paper

Professor Shannon Bowen has authored the top-ranked paper in the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association. The essay, entitled "An Infirm State of Neglect: Public Relations as Ethical Counsel," will be presented at the NCA conference, November 2005 in Boston.

McCown Wins Plank Award from PRSA

Doctoral student Nance McCown has received the prestigious Betsy Plank Graduate Research Competition Award for the Top Student Paper at the Public Relations Society of America Educator's Academy Annual Conference. Her essay, entitled "The Role of Public Relations with Internal Activists" will be presented at the 2005 conference of the Academy in Miami Beach, Florida in October.

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2004-2005

Wolvin Hosts TV Program; Wins Awards

Professor Andrew Wolvin is the anchor of UMTV's program "Researching Maryland." This show presents an in-depth look at the cutting-edge research being done on the University of Maryland's campus -- the top public research university in the region and one of the nation's best. The show received a 2004 Communicator Award and a 2005 Telly Award.

Aldoory Named Editor of JPRR

Professor Linda Aldoory wasnamed Editor-Elect of the Journal of Public Relations Research, the foremost research publication in the field of public relations. Aldoory was selected as the editor at the 2004 national meeting of AEJMC in Toronto.

Doctoral Students Selected for NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar

Department of Communication Ph.D. students Lindsay Hayes and Belinda Stillion Southard recently participated in the 2005 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar. This prestigious event was held in July and was hosted by the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Both Hayes and Stillion Southard were selected for the Rhetorical Studies portion of the Seminar. Only one other doctoral program in the nation had more than one student selected for the Rhetorical Studies Seminar. Department professor Shawn J. Parry-Giles also participated in the Doctoral Honors Seminar as a faculty mentor.