Division & Interest Group News
The Instructional and Developmental Communication Division would like to congratulate two award winners. Daniel Mansson, an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State-Hazelton, was selected as the recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation Award for his dissertation titled "Using Mentoring Enactment Theory to Explore the Doctoral Student-Faculty Mentoring Relationship." Audra Nuru, a doctoral student at the U of Nebraska - Lincoln, was selected as the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for her student-centered and innovative teaching practices. The winners will be recognized at the business meeting in London.
Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award
Open to all ICA members who completed their dissertation in 2012, CAT's award recognizes the most outstanding dissertation in communication and technology. The award will be presented at the CAT division Business Meeting during the 2013 London ICA conference.
Dissertations successfully defended between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2012 may be nominated by the author, dissertation advisor, or professional colleague. Nomination should contain: (a) the author's full contact information including name, phone number, surface mail address, and email address information (b) proof of completion of the dissertation along with date (c) a one-page abstract of the dissertation (d) a 1-2 page statement describing the significance of the work and why it is deserving of the award (e) a representative chapter, selected sections of the dissertation, OR a paper distilling it, up to 30 (double-spaced) pages maximum, excluding references, tables, and figures.
The deadline for receipt of nomination materials is midnight 30 April, 2013 (Greenwich Mean Time). Email PDF files to jdanowski@gmail.com. Place "Dordick Award Nomination" in the subject field.
Address all questions about this award to James Danowski, Vice-Chair, Communication & Technology Division, jdanowski@gmail.com.
The OCD sessions planned for the London ICA convention will be excellent. With a record number of submissions and some innovative programming, we’ll have more of us together than ever before. The Top Papers panel will be held on Thursday afternoon, followed by the OCD business meeting and then the division’s reception.
We are looking for sponsors to help fund some events. Perhaps your department would like to raise its profile in the Organizational Communication community, or you may have another suggestion for a sponsor. If so, please let me know ASAP (t.e.zorn@massey.ac.nz). We would like a sponsor for the Research Escalator session lunch, a co-sponsor (along with MCQ) for the reception, and of course, we’d always like more funds for awards and student travel support.
We have 21 papers this year that will be presented through interactive displays: 5 in the Interactive Poster Session and 16 in two high density panels with 8 papers (one on networks and one on social media). If you are one of the presenters, we encourage you to think creatively about how to present your paper. Last year's winner was our incoming Division Secretary, Keri Stephens (U of Texas), who presented in a high density panel. She collected data during her brief opening presentation to help the group better understands how communication overload differs from information overload. Keri explained how she made the session interactive: "I really wanted to get my main point across and simply talking about it was not enough. I decided to have the audience think about the construction of this concept in a manner congruent with how they teach and conduct research. We often illustrate a concept in class by taking some data and using the data collection process and the results to crystalize learning. That is what I tried to accomplish." Keri also shared other ideas she brainstormed that might be helpful for others' projects. "Three to five minutes is not long enough for a traditional conference paper talk," said Keri. "I also considered having the audience help me construct the perfect tweet about my topic, having them share what overload means to them, or having them read a paragraph about overload and then respond. The key thing is that the poster should be directly linked to the initial summary.” We hope our presenters this year will be equally interactive and creative!
Our focus now is squarely directed on events in London, and I hope very much that you will be able to join us for these. Here are a number of things to bear in mind as you make your preparations:
All best wishes for now,
Philip Lodge
Chair, CHIG