Turner Co-Authors Study of Compliance-Gaining Technique

Associate professor Monique Mitchell Turner is the lead author of an essay appearing in the latest issue of Communication Monographs that reports on the effectiveness of a long-studied compliance-gaining strategy--the door-in-the-face technique.

Co-authored with several colleagues, Turner's study is entitled "The Moderators and Mediators of Door-in-the-Face Requests: Is it a Negotiation or a Helping Experience?" The study concluded that "door-in-the-face" messages are perceived as a helping situation for friends, but not for strangers. Strangers view request messages of all sizes to be a negotiation, but friends see these requests as a negotiation only when the initial request is large.

Citation: Monique Mitchell Turner, Ron Tamborini, M. Sean Limon, & Cynthia Zuckerman-Hyman, "The Moderators and Mediators of Door-in-the-Face Requests: Is it a Negotiation or a Helping Experience?," Communication Monographs 74 (2007): 333-356.

Ph.D. Alum Wins Prestigious Dissertation Award

Ph.D. Alumna Qi Wang, now an assistant professor at Villanova University, received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the International Association of Conflict Management at its annual conference in Budapest, Hungary. Her dissertation is entitled "Strategic Uses of Avoidance in Interpersonal Conflict: A Goals Approach" and was co-advised by Professors Deborah Cai and Edward Fink.

Qi Wang's dissertation joins a list of distinguished recipients of the award, from Harvard University, Cornell University, MIT, and the University of Amsterdam, among others.

Department Faculty & Students Excel at AEJMC in DC

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) annual convention was held August 8-11, 2007, in Washington, DC. Department of Communication faculty and graduate students presented papers and received awards at the convention.

A paper entitled "From Baby Boomers to Generation X: What Has Changed and What Hasn't for Women in Public Relations," co-authored by Bey-Ling Sha, David Dozier, Elizabeth L. Toth & Linda Aldoory received the 2nd place faculty paper in Public Relations Division competition.

A paper entitled "Toward an Ideal Master's Curriculum in the 21st Century" was the First Place Teaching Paper in the Public Relations Division. The essay was co-authored by Hongmei Shen & Elizabeth L. Toth   

Graduate students Ai Zhang, Hongmei Shen and Hua Jiang received a first place award for their presentation "Culture and Chinese Public Relations: A Multi-Method 'Inside Out' Approach."

Graduate student Ai Zhang won the competitively selected Susan Roschwalb Award of $250 to advance her graduate research.

Other papers that featured UMD faculty and graduate students included: "Work-Family Discourse in Public Relations: Development of a Work-Personal Continuum for Gender Theory" by  Linda Aldoory, Hua Jiang, Elizabeth Toth, and Bey-Ling Sha; "Are Two Heads Better than One? The Dynamics and Efficacy of Coalition Building" by Andrew Miller; "How Women Make Meaning of Shared Involvement in News and Bioterrorism" by Jennifer Vardeman and Linda Aldoory; and "The Effects of Shared Experience on Problem Recognition and Involvement:  An Elaboration of the Situational Theory of Publics for Risk Communication" by  Linda Aldoory, Jeong-Nam Kim, and Natalie Tindall.

Department Ranked in Top Ten in Fourteen Research Areas

A new service from the Communication Institute of Online Scholarship (CIOS) ranks leading programs in Communication and Journalism across an array of research areas and topics. Basing its rankings on faculty publication records, the CIOS rankings offer a detailed and comprehensive glimpse of publication patterns among Communication scholars.

The Department of Communication was ranked as a Top Ten program in fourteen different research specialties/topic areas. Specifically, the Top Ten designations were in the areas of publications about the following: Asia, Critical Theory, Democracy, Ethics, Gender, Intercultural, Law, Memory, Persuasion, Political Elections, Politics & Government, Popular Culture, Presidential Figures, Public Relations, Public Speaking, and Social Structure.

Department faculty were ranked highest in Politics & Government (#2), Presidential Figures (#3), Public Relations (#3), Democracy (#5), and Popular Culture (#7).

Dr. Dale Hample (Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1975) will be an associate professor beginning in the fall of 2007. His primary research areas are argumentation and interpersonal communication. Hample comes to the department from Western Illinois University.

Dr. Sahar Mohamed Khamis (Ph.D., University of Manchester, UK, 2000), joins the department as an assistant professor in Middle Eastern media. Her research and teaching specializations are focused on Middle Eastern media and its impact on female publics, specifically government campaigns' effects on women and health.

Dr. Kristy Maddux (Ph.D., University of Georgia, 2007) will be an assistant professor beginning in the fall of 2007. Her primary research and teaching areas include the rhetorics of feminism and religion in both contemporary and historical American contexts.

Elizabeth L. Toth

Toth Named Department Chair

College of Arts & Humanities Dean James F. Harris announced the appointment of Professor Elizabeth L. Toth as the chair of the Department of Communication. Toth succeeds Professor Edward L. Fink who served two five year terms as chair.

Toth is an internationally recognized scholar of public relations and former Associate Dean of the Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University.

Faculty News ...

Aldoory & Waks Named Teaching Fellows

Associate professor Linda Aldoory and Director of Undergraduate Studies Leah Waks have been named as Fellows in the Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Maryland. The Academy is the outgrowth of a faculty-led initiative to build a community of scholars committed to fostering a culture of excellence in teaching and learning at this research university.

Faculty News ...

Fink to Present 2008 Wayne Thompson Lecture

Professor Edward L. Fink has been invited to present the prestigious Wayne Thompson Lecture at Western Illinois University in 2008. The Wayne N. Thompson Lecture has been held since Thompson's death at his undergraduate alma mater. Thompson (1914-1988) was "a noted professor in the discipline of speech communication and a prolific researcher, ranking among the top 20 scholars of the century." Previous Thompson lecturers include Judee Bugoon, Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, Stan Deetz, David Zarefsky, Martha Solomon, Michael Motley, Joseph Wenzel, Leslie Baxter, Marshall Scott Poole, and David Seibold.