By Ashley McDonald, M.A. Student, University of Texas at Austin
(Editor’s note: Most of you know Cynthia Stohl as a noted scholar in our field and as the program planner for the convention in San Francisco. But, here are some insights into our division leader from an interview conducted just over a year ago that many of you may not know.)
Cynthia Stohl, current Chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the International Communication Association, is a prominent figure in the discipline. After completing both of her degrees—Master of Arts (1978) and Doctoral (1982)—at Purdue University, Stohl quickly established herself in the field. Within the first four years of earning her doctorate, she received “Top Three Paper” Awards in the International Communication Association and the Speech Communication Association on seven occasions. Since then, she also has been recognized numerous times for her exceptional contributions to the field through scholarly articles, papers, and an award-winning textbook, Organizational Communication: Connectedness in Action (1995). Additionally, Stohl has also continually been acknowledged for her engaging, innovative teaching, including her most recent Excellence in Distance Education award from Purdue University in 2000.
With so many honors and awards for excellence in her research as well as teaching, it is hard to imagine anyone but an individual who has always desired to be an organizational communication scholar. However, this is a second career for Stohl. As a fifth grade teacher with small children of her own, Stohl led a hectic life. In a recent interview, she lightheartedly said that her husband, Michael, who was Dean of International Programs and a Political Science professor at Purdue University at the time, appeared to have an “easier” job with more flexible hours (personal communication, October 15, 2005). It seemed like an appealing lifestyle, and so she decided to return to school. With a definite interest in social sciences, she began looking into the Department of Communication at Purdue University. Upon investigation, she not only discovered that Purdue had a highly ranked program but also became interested in the idea of taking a social scientific approach to studying social interaction (personal communication, October 15, 2005). For these reasons, she enrolled at Purdue for her Master’s and Ph.D. in organizational communication.
After working as an Associate Professor at Purdue University and acting as a visiting professor across Europe, in New Zealand, and at various universities around the United States for several years, Dr. Stohl received a full professorship at Purdue in 1993. In 1999, she was named head of the Communication Department and remained as such until she and her husband, who has an interest in organizational and political communication, left for positions in the Communication Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2001. Stohl was quoted in The Exponent, Purdue’s student newspaper, as saying, “We’ve had 30 wonderful years here, but this is a new and exciting opportunity for us to work together in the same department” (VanArsdall, 2001).
Over the course of this time, Professor Stohl’s research interests have been predominantly centered on organizational and group studies. She also places a strong emphasis on the relationships among internal and external communication processes in global contexts. According to her biography available through the UCSB Communication Department website, Dr. Stohl’s initial research “focused upon communication networks and issues of quality in global manufacturing groups and has extended to exploring the changing communication partnerships amongst workers, management, communities and civic and multinational organizations” (Cynthia Stohl, 2001, para. 1). More recently, she has become concerned with the “diversity of network and collective action organizations in the global context, including a focus on new communication technologies and terrorist organizations” (Cynthia Stohl, 2001, para. 1).
When asked how earning her degrees at Purdue might have influenced her work, Dr. Stohl notes that her educational background provided her with a foundation for taking a social scientific approach to asking critical questions about organizational processes and networks and for using qualitative and quantitative methods to research this. She believes the “broad read” she received at Purdue allowed her to develop her own sensitivity to the study of organizational communication (personal communication, October 15, 2005).
Now a professor at UCSB, Stohl is also serving as a Co-PI on a National Science Foundation Grant titled “Technological Change and Collective Association: Changing Relationships Among Technology, Organizations, Society, and the Citizenry.” She is working with two colleagues, Andrew Flanagin and Bruce Bimber, to investigate the role of technology in member organizations and collective action organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund and Amnesty International. In doing this, they are hoping to learn how technology is changing relationships among members and the relationship between members and the organization. They are interested in a number of topics, including how technology is increasing functionality and communication and whether or not it affects member commitment (personal communication, October 15, 2005).
Aside from research and teaching, Stohl also serves as the current chair and immediate past vice-chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the International Communication Association. When asked about her role and responsibilities, she immediately responded by insisting that everyone should do service for the promotion and growth of his or her field of study. She believes that all should feel a responsibility to be involved in determining the direction and in the governance of the discipline. She proudly included that the top scholars and researchers in the field of organizational communication are the division chairs, which she describes as “fabulous” (personal communication, October 15, 2005). She continued on to describe one of her major, informal tasks in this leadership role as representing the division well in any way possible.
More formally, in her first year as vice-chair, she was responsible for planning a pre-conference doctoral consortium, which is a topic-driven discussion only open to those with Doctoral degrees or Doctoral degree students. This pre-conference serves as an opportunity for scholars to discuss theory building, completing dissertations, and career transitions as students enter tenure-track or other post-Doctoral degree positions. Many find attending beneficial, because they not only learn from others successes and failures but also meet fellow scholars who might serve as possible co-authors in the future. Additionally, the job of Vice-Chair in the second year is to plan an entire conference, including organizing panels, finding readers and selecting papers for presentation. Finally, in the third year of the cycle (currently), the vice-chair becomes the chair of the division and plans one final conference for the division.
In discussing her role in the International Communication Association, Stohl was also very open with her hopes and goals for the organization. She primarily wants to continue the internationalization of the division. She thinks having the International Communication Association’s 2006 annual conference in Dresden, Germany was one step towards this goal. As she explained, this gives scholars abroad an opportunity to be involved in the “every day doings” of the conference (personal communication, October 15, 2005). Furthermore, she aspires to highlight the very best scholarship and to get others engaged. She believes one way to do this is to have panels in other divisions. She also hopes to encourage work and research that is socially relevant, or research that deals with present issues in contemporary organizations.
Though Stohl’s interesting journey to her career as an organizational communication scholar was a non-traditional one, she is incredibly devoted to her work. Although it may appear as though she would have no extra time outside of her research and service to the field, she describes her favorite hobby as playing with her new grandchild. The impact that Cynthia Stohl has on her own family as well as her family of organizational communication scholars is both positive and enduring. She is truly an asset to the field of organizational communication and to our division of ICA.
References
Cynthia Stohl. (2001). Retrieved October 5, 2005 from
http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/cstohl_flash.htm.
VanArsdall, K. (January 2001). Couple leaves Purdue to take
positions at UC Santa Barbara. The Exponent Online.
Retrieved October 5, 2005 from
http://www.purdueexponent.org/2002/ 01/07/
campus/couple.html.