I am writing my first article for the ICA newsletter, as the new student representative of this organization, with emotion and excitement. Emotion for the past, excitement for the future.
Speaking about the past, it is time to bid farewell to the energetic representative Michelle Khoo. She served as one of the two students on ICA’s Board of Directors from 2008 to 2010. Michelle worked toward bringing greater interaction between students and faculty members of ICA, and being a Singaporean she was glad to contribute to hosting the annual conference in her homeland. Michelle was instrumental in getting ICA on Facebook and Twitter, as well as in administering a survey of Ph.D. student members.
Also speaking about the past, I want to share a few thoughts about how I have got to where I am. I am Diana Nastasia, the 2010-2012 student representative and student board member of ICA, and proud to be a recent Ph.D. graduate in Communication and Public Discourse of the University of North Dakota. I am from Romania, but I currently live in the United States. I first came to the US as a Fulbright Visiting Researcher in 2002, then as a Ph.D. Student in 2003, in search for ways to bridge and connect the communication perspectives and practices in the fermenting postcommunist Eastern Europe with those of the Western world.
Meanwhile, I have learned to consider critically the structures and means of structuration both in the place where I am from and in the one where I now reside. I have also learned that, in spite of obstacles, bridges and connections are still possible if parties involved embrace communicative tolerance and seek creative communication possibilities. Throughout this process of learning and sharing back and forth what I have learned, ICA has been for me a home away from home, in which reflection and scholarship of innovative sorts is encouraged and discussed. That is why I have strived to become involved in its leadership.
Let’s also turn to the future, to what I consider important to be accomplished for ICA’s student constituency in years to come. As a Student Board Member of ICA, I would like to particularly focus on two issues: increasing the number of international students who join and are active in ICA; and enhancing the networks of ICA student members.
I believe that achieving the first of these goal is not as hard as it might seem. It would take encouraging current ICA faculty and student members from different countries to speak about ICA to their students and peers, about what it stands for and how its resources could be utilized for scholarly and professional development. I also believe that the second goal is critical for furthering this organization as well as the discipline of communication studies. This would take enabling ICA student members, through special calls and possibly funding, to seek peers from different regions of the world for collaborative research projects and subsequent joint paper and panel presentations and publications. In addition, the renewed and very diverse ICA Students Affairs Committee will continue the efforts of making ICA’s conferences and events friendly for students and emerging scholars.
Let’s work together for a bright future for the International Communication Association! Stay safe, do good, and keep in touch.
Kind regards,
Diana Iulia Nastasia
