Welcome
In the spring of 1988, 26 years ago now, I remember being a bit daunted by the weather during my job interview here at UMD. Even though I had been living in the upper Midwest since 1976 following my graduation from the University of Arizona, I remember one of my friends from Stevens Point, Wisconsin trying to scare me off accepting the job at UMD by noting the super cold temperatures Duluth had posted the previous winter. Ironically, she issued her warning just as we observed the 13 degree Fahrenheit temperature time and temp posting as we drove to the local YMCA for one of our early morning swim workouts. Just recently, Comm department secretary Sue Brockopp remarked that 13 degrees seems positively balmy after the Polar Vortex we experienced here this past week. Make no mistake, it can be very cold here, but it is a great place to live, work and study.
It is a cliche, but time has wrought significant change to this place over the past quarter century plus. People have come and gone and there have been a few losses. The program has also gone through a number of iterations, but the direction has been positive and remarkable. This inaugural issue of the Department of Comm newsletter (DoC News) will recount some of those changes and identify some of the paths of our students and faculty.
Program Changes
Among the most significant changes to the undergraduate degree program are the additions of Comm 2025 Comm Inquiry: Rhetorical, Historical Methods and Comm 2030 Comm Inquiry: Social Science Methods. These two courses provide a methodological foundation for students, enabling them to explore Communication research problems while completing their undergraduate degrees. Additionally, majors are required to complete a senior seminar as a capstone to complete their Communication degrees. Tenured and tenure-track faculty generate seminar topics in accordance with their own research interests. Among the seminars offered this year are Dr. Ed Downs' "Demystifying Psychophysiology", Dr. Hairong Feng's "Social Support and Well-being", Dr. Aaron Boyson's "Media and Murder", Dr. Elizabeth Nelson's "Happiness and Rhetorical Practice", Dr. Rebecca de Souza's "Food, Communication and Health" and Dr. David Gore's "Rhetoric and the Stoics".
At the end of each term, the Social Science Methods students do poster presentations on their research projects at the Comm 2030 Research Colloquium, and the Senior Seminar students nominate the best papers for presentation at the Senior Seminar Colloquium. These events allow students to demonstrate what they have learned and to share their findings with their fellow students and other professors in the department.
The Comm 2030 Research Colloquium offers an opportunity to undergraduate students to "show what they know". Over the past few years the Comm 2030 professors have scheduled the Research Colloquium for a Saturday toward the end of the term. The students set up their posters in what used to be the lunchroom of Chester Park School. The professors and students of Comm 2030 invite their faculty and fellow students to review the posters and to query the students about their projects.
The faculty and students who visit the poster session presentations go from station to station asking the research teams questions about their projects. The student researchers respond professionally and thoroughly. It is a very impressive event.
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| From left: William Hale, Caitlin Anderson, Ava Heinrich. |
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| From left: Justin Capelle, Nicole Hamer, Ben Hickman |
Students do a literature review and then design and conduct a study to explore a research problem or to do hypothesis testing. This team conducted a survey of 138 subjects.
The Senior Seminars also present an opportunity for students to share their learning. As a capstone course, students select one project from their seminars to participate in a Senior Seminar Colloquium and to demonstrate their mastery of the subject they have chosen to study in greater depth.
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| Dr. Gore's Spring 2013 Senior Seminar focused on Adam Smith. |
My presenting team was composed of four Communication seniors: Brad Bedford, Justin Bergman, John O'Keefe and Kyle Rashad. They presented "An Interdisciplinary Model of Homicide". They were trying to puzzle through why sociologists find that economic inequality predicts homicide, and, in particular, if they could make the case that the mass media play a role in whatever explanatory calculus they could muster. In short form, the heart of their theorizing about media had to do with episodic framing (vs. thematic framing) of the poor, poverty and welfare issues and how news that does so has a twin indirect influence on perceived social support and economic inequality itself, both of which impact homicide independently.
Four of Dr. Boyson's students generated this model of "An Interdisciplinary Model of Homicide".
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| From left: Kyle Rashad, Justin Bergman, Brad Bedford and Dr. Aaron Boyson. |
Reunion
The department has hosted a few reunion events for alumni and current students alike. This past fall, in conjunction with Homecoming week, the department hosted a brunch event titled "Comm Home". The assembled guests heard brief speeches by Chancellor Lendley Black and Mayor Don Ness, in addition to Department chair Dr. Michael Sunnafrank and brunch program coordinator Dr. David Gore. Over 150 people attended the event at the Greysolon Plaza ballroom, and all who attended deemed it a grand success. Check out this story from WDIO: http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S3183251.shtml?cat=10335
Additionally, a number of Comm Faculty participated in a tailgate party at UMD's Homecoming Game. Drs. Downs and Boyson grilled some spicy hotdogs (the secret ingredient was bacon)
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| Drs. Aaron Boyson and Ed Downs with their "Duluth Dogs". |
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| From left: Melanie Goldish, Nora Twite, Barb Titus. |
Passages
We have suffered a few losses in the past year. Although he had been with us for only a few years, those of us who knew him were greatly shocked to learn of the death of Dr. Paul Skalski on May 20, 2013--he was just 40 years old.
He was a unique individual with quirky habits and an unbounded enthusiasm for video game research. We were deeply saddened by his loss.
We were also very, very sorry to learn of the passing of Dr. Jackson Huntley.
This obituary appeared in the Duluth News Tribune.
Jackson Huntley passed away on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 from acute leukemia. He is survived by his wife Jeanette Benson Huntley, his daughter Colleen Magnuson, his son-in-law Eric Magnuson, and their two sons Tyler and Steven; his daughter Lisa Huntley and son-in-law Scott Holgate. Jackson's core value was the "sanctity of relationships".
Jackson received her Bachelor's degree from UW River Falls, his Master's from Kent State University, and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. He taught for three years at Duluth East High School. He joined the faculty of UMD's Department of Communication in 1967, eventually serving as department chair. He became Associate Dean of CLA, a position he held for eight years. He retired from UMD in 2000. While at UMD he received awards for his teaching and advising. He described his profession as "servant educator". After leaving UMD he worked at the Blandin Foundation as the Interim Director of Rural Leadership. He then assumed the role of Senior Manager of Training and Curriculum Design. He fully retired in June of 2010.
Jack, as most of us called him, was an extraordinarily kind person. Lorraine Carlson, formerly of the College of Liberal Arts and now working for the Swenson College of Science and Engineering, wrote this tribute to Jack.
One of Jackson Huntley's passions while serving as the Associate Dean in the Student Affairs office in the College of Liberal Arts was to have students succeed. Of course, he was concerned with the academic progress of students. He often discussed study skills, course selection and abilities to help direct students from probation to good academic standing. He established a trained peer-advisor program to work with students on probation that received national recognition. But, he was equally concerned with the students as individuals. Jack treated everyone equally, fairly and with compassion. He was clear on his expectations, while demonstrating a true sense of understanding. Students were encouraged, guided, taught, appreciated and welcomed in his office. Jackson was truly a friend to all.
I felt privileged to have learned from him, shared an office with him, but the best part was that I experienced a heartfelt friendship with him!Faculty/Staff Briefs
We are so proud to announce that the Board of Regents approved the promotion and tenure of Drs. Rebecca de Souza and Hairong Feng in the spring of 2013.
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| From left: Dr. Hairong Feng and Dr. Rebecca de Souza. |
Trista Vucetich Anderson spread her wings and took on the position as the Fitness and Wellness Coordinator through UMD's Recreational Sports and Outdoor Programs. She is grateful for the opportunity to gain personal and professional development through this position, as fitness has always been one of her passions. This past summer she traveled to Missoula, Montana and was able to spend precious time with her graduate school professors/friends. It was with a heavy heart that she learned her Conflict Management mentor and author of her course text, Professor Bill Wilmot, passed away. She has dedicated this academic year, her last of teaching Conflict Management, to him. She is excited for a panel of guest speakers (including the Vice President of Business Management at Ameriprise Financial, and the Director of Online Marketing at Shop NBC and a local CFO/Human Resource Director) coming this spring to discuss organizational and generational conflict with her students.
Dr. Lawrance Bernabo is writing an in-house textbook for Rhetoric and Popular Media. He is "slowly but surely putting together a Kindle book on the Scopes Trial." He reports that he "finally got to play a part in a Shakespeare play performing Justice Shallow in Wise Fool Shakespeare's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor." He also did his first (totally) unofficial half-marathon and passed the 800 mile mark for running (defined as four parts walking and one part running) in 2013.
Angela Blais volunteers a lot and incorporates some of her observations from organizations and youth programs into her teaching. She has done a couple of book reviews on interpersonal texts for Oxford and an independent publishing house.
Dr. Aaron Boyson continues to produce work in media effects and health communication, having gotten a paper accepted for publication showing how exemplification of medical treatments for HIV/AIDS in the news encourages people to engage in riskier sexual behavior. Mostly, though, he loves the challenge of finding new ways to bring students in to the research process both in and outside of class, for the sake of making new discoveries in communication.
Sue Brockopp, having worked at UMD for over 34 years, likes to take an annual winter trip to some far away location (generally where the temperatures average in the 70s-80s). Last year she visited the Dominican Republic; the year before she toured Panama and its canals. This year her trip to Belize had to be cancelled as her travel companion had hip surgery followed by a fall necessitating a second hip surgery followed by six more weeks of rehab. Sue is hoping to reschedule her trip to Belize for February 2015.
Kristin Carlson has been working on compiling new internship opportunities for students and continue to do so on an ongoing basis. She has also been involved with book reviews for varying Interpersonal Communication books. Over the summer she was involved with her family and all of their activities, specifically coaching her daughter's U 10 soccer team and helping with activities and community involvement in the Pike Lake area and Pike Lake school.
Dr. Rebecca de Souza's current research revolves around understanding the lived reality of food insecurity in the Duluth region, as well as how interventions can be designed for communities as partners in research rather than objects of investigation. The study evaluates three distinct food programs in Duluth: the CHUM food pantry, the SHARE food buying club and Ruby's Pantry. The research team is exploring the long-term viability of these programs to address the problem of food insecurity, the health implications of using food from these programs (which tend to distribute corporate surplus food), and the potential of these programs to build community capacity amongst disconnected individuals. She is also working on a study exploring the experiences of college students using Prescription Stimulants without a legal prescription, as well as the social interactions that influence this pharmaceutical practice. Together with her husband and 18 month old son, Dr. de Souza traveled 22 hours in a plane across the Atlantic to visit grandparents in India. While there, she and her husband, Dr. Adam Pine, initiated conversations with the Indian Social Institute, a research and advocacy institute run by Jesuit priests about a potential Study Abroad Program for UMD students.
Dr. Edward Downs continues to examine the relationship between technology and cognition from a processing standpoint. This past year, he presented a panel on video games, a poster on technology and cognition, and a conference paper on multitasking in the classroom at the International Communication Association conference. The paper was coauthored with three undergraduate research assistants (Angela Tran, Robert McMenemy and Nahom Abegaze). Over the summer, he traveled with and met other scholars from across the globe in London, Dublin, New York, and Kralendijk. He is working to secure lab space in order to continue to work with students to show how research can have valuable, real-work implications
Jean Farrell continues to develop the Civic Engagement focus for Interpersonal Communication. In spring semester 2013, four students were offered either a summer job, a long term job or an internship directly from their Civic Engagement assignment. She continues to work on "Bias is Baggage" a the final project in Interpersonal as it brings together so many major objectives of the course. For students who are comfortable working with others of all backgrounds, the focus for their final project is to "Pay it Forward". Examples of such projects include a video on the Multicultural Center, a brochure on "How to Receive Coming-out News" and a presentation on "That's so..." to help peers be more aware of words and their impact. In end of term surveys, students report they learned most from the Civic Engagement project which gave them "real world" experience and the Bias Projects which helped them work with diversity.
Dr. Hairong Feng traveled to London for the 63rd International Communication Association conference. While across the "pond" she also traveled to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Koln, Bonn and Luxembourg. In July, she traveled to Beijing, China to meet family and friends. These trips, she writes, "allow me to think more about cultural similarities and differences regarding religion, political systems and personal relationships. Besides, after the trips to different places I am feeling more in love with Duluth." She is working with one student on an undergraduate research opportunities project comparing Americans and Koreans with respect to advice giving. She is also working with Dr. Ryan Goei and a student research team on the person-centeredness of apology messages.
Dr. Ryan Goei is UMD's Director of University Honors. He is working with Dr. Feng to develop a new communicative theory of apology effectiveness. He is also analyzing data on a two year long obesity reduction project at St. Luke's Hospital. Student researchers participated in both projects. Goei joined the Intercultural Practicum in Hawaii to do a program review. Together with Dr. Sunnafrank, he is working on expanding the Intercultural Communication class offerings so that more students have access to that class. Goei and Sunnafrank believe the transformational experience afforded by Intercultural Communication could improve the campus climate and make a positive difference in the lives of even more UMD students. They began working with a local film company to create a documentary of the Intercultural Communication experience.
Melanie Goldish, together with former CLA Dean (and Comm Department faculty) Linda Krug, founded the business consulting firm Momentum Unleashed as a corporate leadership team's right hand resource. Goldish is also an official Interfaith Chaplain and has officiated at three weddings and one funeral to date. As founder of SuperSibs!, the national nonprofit organization serving over 34,000 vulnerable siblings of children with cancer, she now serves as a pro-bono executive coach and adviser to her successor Executive Director, as well as an Honorary Board member with regular Chicago meetings. Locally, Goldish serves on the Advisory Council for the Women's Health Center in Duluth.
Dr. David Gore is guest-editing a special issue of Argumentation & Advocacy on scholarship related to Jim Aune, Gore's mentor who passed away in January 2013 under very difficult circumstances. He is also re-working a chapter on the influence of religion on Marshall McLuhan to be published in a book by a Canadian press. McLuhan, during the course of his scholarly career, converted to Catholicism and it played a prominent role in his media theory. Additionally, Dr. Gore is working on a book on rhetorical hermeneutics as a guide for understanding Mormon scripture. As part of his Imagine Grant on Mormonism and Politics in the 21st century, he presented a paper on Mitt Romney's Mormonism in the 2012 election at the Rhetoric in Society 4 Conference at the University of Copenhagen. During the summer of 2013 he worked with a student on Directed Research on John Calvin and Calvinism. This included an in-depth study of The Institutes of the Christian Religion as well as an interesting biography on Calvin.
Brian Matuszak's theater company, Rubber Chicken Theater, presented The Chicken Hat Plays in October, a one-day theater event where participants write, rehearse and perform eight original one-act plays in 24 hours. Lawrance Bernabo has been an active participant in this project. Additionally, they presented their annual Holiday Sketch Comedy Revue in December, made up of original comedy sketches written and performed by members of the company. The sketches poke fun at local, regional and national events--a localized Saturday Night Live.
Dr. Elizabeth Nelson returned from sabbatical to recommence full-time work in the department. Having served as Chair of the Communication Department for 14 years, the sabbatical gave her time to travel, visit with colleagues across the country, reconnect with her various research projects, make lots of quilts and just rest. She is currently developing a project on quilts as a form of visual rhetoric. Akin to this project, she is looking at quilt guilds as sites for the education and empowerment of (mostly) women, bringing together her appreciation for rhetorical theory and criticism with her work on happiness, creativity and the practice of making quilts.
Dr. Deborah Petersen-Perlman spent Fall 2012 teaching at the University of Worcester as part of UMD's Study in England Programme (SIE). While overseas the focus of her post SIE European tour was on Holocaust sites, including three camps--Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Ravensbruck--as well as the Jewish quarter of Prague, Schindler's Factory and the Holocaust Memorial/Museum of Berlin. Together with Alworth Institute Director Dr. Cindy Christian, she did a presentation on "Nazi Concentration Camps: Strategies for Sadism and Cultural Annihilation" in the spring of 2013. This past fall she presented a program on the 70th Commemoration of Kristallnacht, and gave remarks at the opening of the international traveling exhibit on "Lawyers Without Rights". She returned to the Netherlands and Germany in October, making visits to Elburg, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen.
Dr. Michael Pfau is currently serving as President of the University Education Association, the faculty union at UMD. He co-edited a book, Making the Case: Advocacy and Public Argument (published by Michigan State University Press in the fall of 2012), and authored an essay in the journal Argumentation & Advocacy (also appearing in the fall of 2012). He continues to pursue projects related to partisan rhetoric, argument evaluation and the NRA's deployment of conspiracy rhetoric.
Dr. Jennifer Reierson presented "Meanings of Remembering and Memorializing Crises: Understanding the Pentagon Memorial in Washington, D.C." at the National Communication Association conference in Washington. In the summer of 2013, she traveled to Prague, CZ to present "Rethinking Haiti's Victimization: Use of Visual Art in the Community Renewal process after the 2010 Earthquake" at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. She volunteered as assistant coach for the UMD women's soccer team (she was a member of the team as an undergraduate at UMD), and she traveled Lake Superior in an RV with her family and Google Glasses (her husband was one of the first 10,000 in the world to receive them).
Dr. Michael Sunnafrank went to his 50th Napa High School Reunion where he "partied the night away (until 10:00 p.m.). " He also bought his first convertible--a 2005 blue Solara (to match his eyes). He is finishing work on a review of his Predicted Outcome Value Theory for the International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication.
Barb Titus collaborated with Eunice Alsaker LICSW, CT from Winona State and Heather Servaty-Seib PhD to present on a panel at the ADEC (Association of Death Education and Counseling) in April regarding college students and grief. She also increased the once weekly support group for grieving college students to twice a week. Health services now will be giving out brochures to the surrounding colleges in the area to inform them that their students are welcome as well as our UMD students to the group.
Nora Twite participated in the Lake Superior Writer's Workshop at UMD over the past summer, 2013. From this experience, she was able to develop a few writing prompts and ideas for use in her Public Speaking and Interpersonal Communication classrooms. In addition, she has recently been inducted into the Delta Kappa Gamma Sorority which recognizes and brings together "excellent women educators" at all levels of teaching to work toward the promotion and recognition of women educators worldwide.
