UC Communication Contingent Set to Make Impact at National Meeting

It promises to be a big week for faculty from the Communication Department of the University of Cincinnati’s McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, when the National Communication Association (NCA) holds its 93rd annual meeting from Nov. 15-18 in Chicago.

Not only will there be a number of intriguing presentations by UC faculty and grad students, but Professor Gail Fairhurst will be receiving the 2007 "Book of the Year" Award from the NCA’s Organizational Communication Division.

Fairhurst will be honored for her book, "Discursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology," which examines the role of communication in carrying out leadership roles within organizations. It then contrasts those skills with a more traditional psychologically based approach to leadership.

UC will also be well-represented during the conference’s academic sessions, with a number of presentations accepted for inclusion on the panels.

Two presentations that could have particularly broad appeal are being made by Suzanne Boys and Nancy Jennings, both assistant professors within UC’s Communication Department.

Boys will present a pair of papers relating to sexual exploitation scandals and religion, one dealing with communication from the victim’s perspective and a second looking at the ramifications associated with public relations in these scenarios. Jennings will be presenting on her research into Web marketing to children.

(To read abstracts on the presentations to be made, go to this page and click on "Search through the Convention Program Schedule")

Here are the topics from the UC Communication Department to be presented at the meeting:

Thursday, November 15, 2007

12:30 – 1:45 p.m. - "Service-learning for Intercultural and Advanced Intercultural Communication" – Michael J. Woeste, PhD, UC Field Service Assistant Professor of Communication

3:30 – 4:45 p.m. - "Purpose, Publics and Science: The interaction of science and politics in the debate on embryonic stem cells" – John A. Lynch, PhD, UC Assistant Professor of Communication

Friday, November 16, 2007

12:30 – 1:45 p.m. – "Dialogue as Strategy and Enactment: Tracking Orientations to Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis" – Suzanne Boys, PhD, UC Assistant Professor of Communication

3:30 – 4:45 p.m. – "And Now a Click from our Sponsors": Websites and Marketing for the Child Audience" – Nancy Jennings, PhD, UC Assistant Professor of Communication

Saturday, November 17, 2007

2:00 – 3:00 p.m. – "Rhetoric, Christianity, and Gender Identity in the United States" – Leland Spencer, UC graduate student in Communication

2:00 – 3:15 pm – "Narrating the Silence: Reconstructing an Experience of Religious Sexual Exploitation" – Suzanne Boys, PhD, UC Assistant Professor of Communication

Two faculty members from UC Clermont College’s Humanities and Social Sciences Division will also present at the NCA meeting on Friday, Nov. 16.

Patricia Friel and Kelly Frigard will present "The Artistic Process: Comparing and Contrasting How to Foster Aesthetic Quality in Actors/Performers and Visual Artists" from 3:30-4:45 p.m. Also in the same session, Friel will be presenting her work, "The Socializing Functions of Humor: Group Dynamics Among Actors/Performers."