Student members of the International Communication Association who participated in the 2011 Annual Conference in Boston had numerous activities to choose from. To mention just a few, the master classes brought students together with established scholars in communication studies, and the graduate student reception at the trendy Lucky's Lounge gave students opportunities to taste local foods and to socialize with their peers.

Now, with the conference complete, it is time to bid farewell to the 2009-2011 Graduate Student Representative Malte Hinrichsen, a Ph.D. Candidate at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR).

While serving as a student representative, Malte contributed texts for the newsletter, did fundraising for the 2010 student activities, and helped implement a student member survey.

It is also time to say hello to the 2011-2013 Graduate Student Representative Sojung Claire Kim, a Ph.D. Candidate and Doctoral Fellow in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sojung Claire Kim will cochair ICA's Student Affairs Committee with the 2010-2012 Graduate Student Representative, Diana Iulia Nastasia.

Sojung Claire received a B.A. in Mass Communications and in Education from Korea University and graduated with a M.A. in Telecommunications from Indiana University-Bloomington. She has Ph.D. minors in Business and in Educational Psychology and more than 3 years of university teaching experience, and has worked as a marketing analyst and an associate director. Her research interests mainly lie at the intersection of new media, health communication, and social marketing, and her research experience in these topics has developed into published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the New Media & Society and Patient Education and Counseling. During her spare time, Sojung Claire enjoys practicing hot yoga, meditating, and listening to any type of music except hard rock. You can find out about ICA's new student representative on her website http://sites.google.com/site/sojungclairekim/

The coming year's Student Affairs Committee will welcome back Nicolas Bencherki from the Universite de Montreal in Canada, Anastasia Grynko from Kyiv National University in Ukraine, and Joice Soares Tolentino from Karlstad University in Sweden. The committee also welcomes a new member, Riva Tukachinski from the University of Arizona in the US.

The ICA Student Affairs Committee will continue to work towards better informing ICA student members of the affairs of the association and towards further integrating such members into the association. In addition to continuing the writing of the newsletter articles for students, the work on the communication venues for students, and the planning and promotion of the conference activities for students, the following steps will be taken by the committee members within the next year: analyzing the results of the newly administered survey, to understand the needs of student members and to better address these needs; and starting an awareness campaign to attract more international students to ICA from countries that are currently underrepresented in the association.

Photographs from the 2011 Graduate Student reception: