The Student Affairs Committee of the International Communication Association (ICA) is one of the ICA standing committees that serves the needs and interests of student members to facilitate meaningful ICA experiences among emerging scholars.   

For the 2012-2013 term, four committee members will work hard together to achieve our goals of active student engagement.  The committee members come from different parts of the world with diverse scholarly backgrounds: The committee is consisted of two leaders, Sojung Claire Kim, who has recently completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the U of Pennsylvania and joined High Point U as an assistant professor in Health Communication, and Rahul Mitra, who is currently a doctoral candidate at Purdue U, studying organizational communication.  The committee also includes Steven David Hitchcock (U of Waikato), Kikuko Omori (U of Wisconsin – Madision), and Johan Martin Hjorth Jacobsen (Aarhus U).

Primary duties and responsibilities of the ICA Student Affairs Committee include but are not limited to: interacting with student members to listen to their interests and concerns, assisting in developing and disseminating student agenda, recommending and promoting policies and activities to enhance student involvement, reporting in writing to the ICA Board of Directors on student policy and activity, and the committee leaders attending the ICA Board of Directors meeting at the annual ICA conference.

This month’s student column focuses on sharing one major activity the committee plans to utilize this year to receive feedback from student members as well as to increase participation from nonstudent members of the ICA.

ICA Student Member Survey

In 2007 and 2009, the committee received a lot of insightful comments from student members through the ICA student member survey. They commented on conference activities they participated in, their levels of satisfaction on these activities, ICA communication channels including ICA newsletters, and their levels of satisfaction on these channels. The survey results were informative for the committee to realize where the committee’s work stood in terms of student involvement. 

Therefore, the committee plans to launch the Student Member Survey later this year to receive feedback from student members to create a more satisfactory ICA experience. Once again, the survey will start by asking about student awareness of committee activities, specific student events (both for their intellectual and social growth), and newsletter articles. The survey will also inquire about student participation in these activities and events as well as their satisfactory levels on these activities. The survey will ask about suggestions for further student activities, events, and topics for newsletter articles and also thoughts for actions the ICA needs to take to further encourage involvement from non-student members. 

The construction of this year’s Student Member Survey is now ongoing, so if you have any further ideas about what should be included on the ICA Student Member Survey, the Student Affairs Committee would very much welcome your suggestions.  Please e-mail the Student Affairs Committee Chair Sojung Claire Kim at skim@highpoint.edu with any ideas.