CST Dept. News 04/01/2004

Come join us for an evening of celebration and recognition

Friday April 30th
7 PM
Cleary Alumni Center

Free appetizers and cash bar

New faculty member hired

The CST Department is proud to announce that Dr. Kurt Billmeyer has accepted a contract offer and will be joining us in the fall semester, 2004, as our “Computer Mediated Communication / New Media” expert. He comes to us from Washburn University in Kansas, and previously taught at the University of Northern Arizona (where he was NAU’s distance learning expert). Dr. Billmeyer was selected at the end of an exhaustive search that really began more than three years ago with the first of two committees that worked to fill the position. We are glad to have succeeded – and we look forward to Dr. Billmeyer’s arrival on campus.

The CST department would like to thank all the students who took part in on-campus interviews for faculty hire candidates. We hosted candidates on February 27, March 1, and March 8. Dozens of CST students took part in classroom teaching/ research presentations, in dinners with candidates, and in informal Q&A sessions. The CST Department is very appreciative of all the feedback submitted by students who met the three candidates. Again, we thank you.

We are especially appreciative of Natalie Degezelle and Sara Weisenbeck, the two student members of the CST Search & Screen Committee. They put in dozens of hours of time reading files, making telephone calls, and in committee meetings. Thank you, Natalie and Sara! (The faculty members of the Search & Screen Committee were chair Dr. Linda Dickmeyer, Rick Rodrick, Doug Swanson, and Pat Turner.)

Faculty accomplishments of note

Dr. Ronda Knox, Associate Professor, has been serving as chair of the Search & Screen Committee for the new Dean of the College of Liberal Studies.

Dr. David Piehl, Associate Professor, received a $750 grant from the UW-L Classroom Research Project to improve the quality of undergraduate instruction. His project is to research how to improve the instruction of one of the Department’s 10 writing competencies: Analysis.

Dr. Scott Dickmeyer, Assistant Professor, received a $4,996 Faculty Research Grant. The grant will be used for equipment and travel necessary for studying how companies that consistently rank as “Best Companies to Work For in America” communicate in ways that build employee trust and appreciation for their organization’s culture.  Additionally, Dr. Dickmeyer presented four papers at NCA this year, including the top paper in the training and development division. He was also elected to be the program planner for next year's NCA held in Chicago in November.  This means he is the one who designs the call for papers, collects them, recruits reviews, distributes the papers to reviewers, and ultimately slots the panels for the academic presentations. He was also put in charge of creating a pre-conference for the T & D division which includes determining the topics for discussion, recruiting renowned scholars to present, schedule and facilitate the full day seminar. Finally, Dickmeyer will be awarded the top paper in the Organizational and Professional Communication Interest Group at this spring’s Central States Communication Association Convention being held in Cleveland in April.

Dr. Doug Swanson, Assistant Professor, is author of the lead article in the newest edition of Journal of Media and Religion (Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004). The article is “The Framing of Contemporary Christian Apostasy on the World Wide Web.” Swanson’s article resulted from a research project conducted by students in the last CST 362 (Tools & Strategies) class.

Dr. Swanson is a member of the national membership committee for AEJMC (Assoc. for Education in Journalism and Mass Comm.). In the fall, he will be helping the AEJMC to survey its members in an effort to determine the extent to which lack of institutional funding support negatively impacts on AEJMC membership and conference attendance by faculty. In other words, if you are a college professor who has to pay out of your own pocket for costs associated with your academic/ scholarly work on behalf of your institution - are you less likely to follow through with this kind of work?

More than 3,500 AEJMC members will be surveyed by mail and the survey questionnaires will all be returned to UW-L (individually) for collection, data analysis, interpretation, and a report. Swanson’s report will be co-authored by one or two CST students who will work with him in “independent study” on this project. The report will be published either in the AEJMC newsletter or in a journal, depending on what is found from the survey and how significant the results appear to be.

“Show Us Your Cans” contest under way

The CST cans, illustrated on the opening page of our web site, are quite controversial. Some people really like them. Others hate them. Regardless of your position – be aware that there will soon be a change. We need to update the front page of the site and the old graphic with the cans is going to go. We are asking CST students to help us through the “Show Us Your Cans” contest.

If you’re a CST student, you need to check in with the Comm Club or with Lambda Pi Eta to find out how the “Show Us Your Cans” contest works. (It’s nothing naughty, but it does involve two sets of cans, a lot of creativity, and some clever photography.) We urge you to join in!

May Term and Summer Term CST Courses

Don’t forget that there are plenty of course offerings this summer for CST students at any level who need to pick up a few hours here or there.

CST offerings in May Term include CST 110 (Public Oral Communication), CST 250 (Small Group), and CST 260 (Professional Communication).

Dr. Doug Swanson is offering his CST 491 Special Topics – Grand Excursion course. The course involves 8 days of meetings and field trips all focused on the Grand Excursion (http://www.grandexcursion.com/). Each student in the class will perform 25 hours of “hands on” community service working with an agency involved in Grand Excursion. To learn more about this class, contact Dr. Swanson. A copy of the syllabus can be found here: CST 491 syllabus.

CST 230 will not be offered in the summer.  CST 250 small groups and CST 260 prof. comm. will be offered in addition to CST 110 and the special topics classes.

Dr. Scott Dickmeyer is again offering his popular CST 491 Special Topics – Leadership Communication. This course was very enthusiastically received last summer, and created a really good “buzz” among students in the department. See Dr. Dickmeyer for the details about the course and what it will cover.

Help Wanted!

Our web master, Linda Wong, has done a GREAT job with the CST site. But Linda wants to graduate. So we will let her. As a result, the CST department is searching for a web master for fall, 2004. Three hours of academic credit are available (CST 450) for doing this job. See Dr. Swanson for a position description and further info.