Departmental News
Graduate Students Receive Grants; Present Research
Four Department of Communication graduate students recently were notified that they are the recipients of a travel grant from the Center for Teaching Excellence to make possible their attendance at the Lilly East Conference at the University of Delaware. Terri Donofrio, Ben Krueger, Hua Jiang, and Ai Zhang were among the 25 recipients of the grants.
Donofrio, Krueger, Jiang, & Zhang
The Lilly Conferences combine interactive workshop sessions, discussions, and feature presentations, with opportunities for informal discussion about excellence in college and university teaching and learning. They bring together faculty and graduate students from across disciplines and types of academic institutions. CTE staff, along with University of Maryland faculty and graduate teaching assistants, have attended this conference for a number of years. It is an outstanding opportunity to meet others from the Mid-Atlantic interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning and to discuss effective strategies for undergraduate education. CTE offers conference grants for graduate students For further information on the conference, visit http://www.udel.edu/lillyeast/.
COMM@GRID, 2009
Eight graduate students from the Department of Communication will present research at the Graduate Research Interaction Day (GRID) on Monday, April 13, 2009, in the Stamp Student Union. GRID is sponsored by the Graduate Student Government at the University of Maryland.
Ph.D. students Susan Allen, Terri Donofrio, James Gilmore, Tiffany Lewis, Katie Place, and M.A. students Rowena Briones and Elizabeth Gardner are among the many speakers scheduled to present their work in the annual event.
Update:
Susan Allen and Rowena Briones received first place awards for their GRID presentations.
Susan Allen's presentation was entitled "Fighting Negative Identity" and was presented in the "Globalization" section. Her research presented findings of exploratory case studies that were conducted on Muslim American civil rights organizations that challenge perceptions of Muslims as extremists. Results collected through in-depth interviews and content analysis showed that organization members construct four identities: cultural/ethnic Muslim versus religious Muslim, civic, narrative, and coalitional. Members communicated Muslim identity primarily through dialogue and narrative.
Rowena Briones's presentation was entitled "Effective Emergency Preparedness: A Qualitative Study of Applying Agenda-Building and Framing to the American Red Cross's Communication Practice" and was presented in the "Culture, Literature, & Society" section. Her qualitative study explores agenda-building and framing within the American Red Cross's emergency preparedness messages. Findings revealed that there is an interactive and reciprocal relationship between the American Red Cross, the media, and outside organizations, calling for a combination of rational and emotional appeals as well as the use of various framing devices to disseminate messages.
