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.

Mason Receives Winnemore Fellowship

Graduate student A. Michele Mason has received the inaugural Winnemore Fellowship, given by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH). The fellowship is presented to a graduate student who is writing a dissertation that centrally engages the Digital Humanities. Applications were evaluated on the quality of the student's work, the likelihood of completing the dissertation, and the relevance of the project for the Digital Humanities.

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."

Department is Part of "PR Ivy League"

The Department of Communication's public relations program has been identified as part of the "PR Ivy League" by PR Week magazine. The analysis of public relations education identified the University of Maryland, the University of Florida, and Syracuse University as the top three public relations programs in the nation. Other institutions mentioned include Northwestern University, Boston University, the University of Georgia, USC, and Notre Dame. Department professor Elizabeth Toth was featured and quoted in the article.

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.

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.

PR Students Dominate Top Student Paper Panel at ICA

Three Department of Communication graduate students, Hyo-Sook Kim, Yi-Ru Regina Chen, and Yi Luo, were featured at the convention of the International Communication Association on the Top Student Papers panel of the Public Relations Division. Only four papers appear on the panel. The convention was held in New York City, May 26-30, 2005.

Professors S.J. Parry-Giles & R. Gaines Receive NEH Grant

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded two Department of Communication professors a $195,023 grant to promote the study of great speeches and public debates in undergraduate humanities classrooms. The project is sponsored by UMD's Center for Political Communication & Civic Leadership.

Associate Professors Shawn J. Parry-Giles and Robert N. Gaines joined with colleagues from the Pennsylvania State University (J. Michael Hogan and Rosa A. Eberly) and Baylor University (Martin J. Medhurst) to secure the funding from the NEH for the Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project.

The Voices of Democracy Project seeks to reinvigorate the humanistic study of U.S. oratory by fostering an understanding of the nation's principles and history with the goal of promoting civic engagement among undergraduate students.

When the Web site is launched in the spring of 2008, the Voices of Democracy project will enable students to study U.S. oratory through Web-based teaching-learning materials including a multimedia archive of great speeches and debates. The project will provide reliable, authenticated primary texts (with audio and video versions when available) along with interactive curricular materials under seven "deliberative topics": Citizenship, Civil Rights, Freedom of Speech, Religion and Public Life, Social and Economic Justice, U.S. Internationalism, and War and Peace.

To read the full press release about the NEH Grant, click here.

Department Ranks in Top Ten in Three Research Specialties

The National Communication Association (NCA) conducted a survey this past summer to rate the reputations of doctoral programs in Communication. The 2004 study was the second such study carried out by NCA--the first one was released in 1996. The study asks respondents to rate departments on three criteria--scholarly quality of the faculty; program effectiveness in educating future researchers; and quality change in the last five years. The scholarly quality of the faculty is the primary measure of departmental reputation in this study.

The Department of Communication at the University of Maryland was ranked in the top ten in three research specialties--one of only 15 universities to place three or more research areas in the top ten.

In Intercultural-International Communication, the Department was ranked fifth. Given that the Department was not ranked in this specialty in the 1996 study, the top five ranking is a significant achievement.

In Political Communication, the Department was ranked eighth. The Department was also the top ranked program in this specialty on the quality change in the last five years criteria.

In Rhetorical Communication, the Department was ranked seventh. In the 1996 study, the Department ranked 19th in Rhetorical Communication. Moreover, on the quality of change criterion, the Department was ranked second.

The full study is available on the NCA Web site.

Doctoral Student Jason Black Selected for Honors Seminar

Jason Edward Black was selected to participate in the NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar to be held during the summer of 2004 at the University of New Mexico. Joining other doctoral students from around the nation, Black will participate in an intensive program of instruction and exchange. Black is the latest of a series of Maryland students selected for this seminar.

Doctoral Student Lisa Corrigan Selected for Conference

Lisa Corrigan, doctoral student, was selected to attend Northwestern University's Graduate Summer Institute on Dissenting Rhetorics to be held July, 2004 in Evanston. Corrigan will join students from the University of Iowa, the University of Georgia, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois, and elsewhere in an intensive week of study about rhetorics of dissent in historical and contemporary contexts. Seminar leaders are faculty from Northwestern, the University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt University, and Maryland professor Mari Boor Tonn.