Communication Studies News
February 13, 2006
Academic Program Review brings consultant to visit March 9-10
Dr. Melissa Beall from the University of Northern Iowa has agreed to act as our external consultant for the CST Department’s Academic Program Review. Dr. Beall has a distinguished record and has acted as an external consultant for several other communication studies departments. We expect she will provide excellent feedback on our review and hope she will be able to provide advise on how we move forward as a department to better meet the needs of students in a changing higher education environment. The Academic Program Review document for Dr. Beall’s visit is being written by Dr. Linda Dickmeyer and Dr. Mike Tollefson.
Our last program review was conducted in 1997. During the years immediately following that review, our department’s curriculum focus shifted from Mass Communication to Communication Studies with our current emphasis areas. Our enrollment has grown dramatically during this same time period, going from 60 majors in 1997 to a peak enrollment of 326 majors and 167 minors in spring of 2003. (In fall, 2005, CST had 141 majors, 108 minors, and 128 pre-CST students.)
As part of her consultation, Dr. Beall will be on campus March 9-10. The on campus visit allows Dr. Beall to become more closely acquainted with our faculty, students, department facilities, college, and university. The executive committee will be working on a schedule that will provide Dr. Beall opportunities to interact with students, faculty and administrators and we will update you as this process proceeds.
Faculty search and screen
A Communication Studies Department search and screen committee is working to fill two tenure-track faculty positions in our department for fall, 2006. The members of the committee include Dr. Ronda Knox (chair), and Drs. Linda Dickmeyer, Scott Dickmeyer, David Piehl, Rick Rodrick, Doug Swanson, and Mike Tollefson. CST students Joe Branca and Beth Erickson are also serving on the committee. Watch for meeting notices on the CST bulletin board outside the main office. We hope to have candidates on campus for interviews before the end of the semester.
NSSE Working Group includes CST students
Three CST students are serving on a campus working group to promote awareness of, and involvement in, the National Survey of Student Engagement. Marcelle Gathing, Jessie Pierquet and Kelly Runkle have created and are managing a communication campaign to reach students and faculty with information about the NSSE. The students are working with Dr. Doug Swanson, Dr. Carmen Wilson and Dr. Bill Cerbin (Psychology), Dr. Larry Ringgenberg (Student Activities and Centers), Dr. Nick Nicklaus (Residence Life), and Teri Thill (Institutional Research).
Between Feb. 15 and April 15, UW-L freshmen and seniors will be contacted via e-mail and asked to participate in the NSSE. The survey assesses college students’ involvement in curricular activities that are associated with academic achievement. For us as an institution, the NSSE is vitally important. Its findings help UW-L assess institutional performance. The NSSE results help us compare ourselves with other similar universities. NSSE data has a direct benefit to our students, as well. It was NSSE data that, in large measure, supported our investment in Academic Initiatives, the student-led program that resulted in creation of the Academic Advising Center.
For more info about the NSSE, visit this web site: http://www.uwlax.edu/provost/assessment/nsse/nsse.htm
Toyosaki dissertation findings accepted for publication
The department’s newest faculty member, Dr. Satoshi Toyosaki, has a number of research pieces in progress (all resulting from his dissertation). He co-authored an article with Sandy Pensoneau, entitled “Yaezakura—Interpersonal Culture Analysis.” The article just appeared in International Journal of Communication. Dr. Toyosaki has another article, “Communication Sensei’s Storytelling: Projecting Identity into Critical Pedagogy” that is scheduled for publication this summer in Cultural Studies/ Critical Methodologies.
He is chairing two panels for the Central States Communication Association conference in Indianapolis, April 2006. Both panels address cultural diversity issues in (communication) education. One is entitled “Stories, Students, Community, and Body,” in which he is also presenting a paper, “White Body.” Another panel is called “Critical Inclusion of Gender and Sexuality in Education.”
In his dissertation, Dr. Toyosaki analyzed four basic communication textbooks, employing rhetorical cultural criticism to investigate textbook authors’ constructions of discursive positions—the teaching self, the “I,” the learning others, the “you,” and the collective educational identity, the “we.” His overall analysis points to immaturity in the understanding and embodiments of social agency.
Appearing cultural rhetoric, teaching and learning of social agency in communication education help (re)produce education as a culturally unjust social system where social agency, oftentimes, becomes reserved for culturally mainstream/privileged educational participants. As a result, marginalized and less socially privileged educational participants appear as projects/targets of such social agency.
The analyzed communication teachers/textbook authors, both explicitly and implicitly, engage in pedagogies, informed by postmodern philosophy. However, the discourse of their communication teaching modernizes educational participants’ identity locations and representations. The identified lack of postmodern expression in social agency teaching and learning becomes an issue.
Dr. Toyosaki concluded his dissertation proposing performative critical pedagogy in order to settle this disparity between postmodern pedagogical intentions and their lack of expressions. Performative critical pedagogy negates the concept of identity as a private and subjective matter, and allows educational participants to liberate their identity interpretations. In this pedagogy, education appears, and, hopefully, becomes a site for a collection of educational participants’ intersubjective identity projects, possiblizing “social” agency.
Dr. Toyosaki enjoys discussing this topic and welcomes you to visit and do just that. His office is 319 Center for the Arts.
CST faculty member collaborating for Russian conference
Dr. Cheri Niedzwiecki and Russian colleague Natasha Evdelman have had a paper accepted for the Third Annual Russian Communication Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 12-16. Many of the students in Dr. Niedzwiecki’s Intercultural Communication classes took part in an email exchange with Russian students over the past three years.
Recent CST grad featured in ‘Generations’ article; speaks here Feb. 28
Carrie Amann, recent CST graduate (PR/Org. Comm. emphasis) was featured in the La Crosse Tribune’s recent Sunday cover story on different generations in the workplace http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2006/02/05/news/00lead.txt.
Carrie is the public relations coordinator for CenturyTel in La Crosse. She will be speaking to Lambda Pi Eta on Tues., Feb. 28, 6 p.m., Center for the Arts 342.
CST is ‘all in the family’ for Pillsburys
Joyce Pillsbury, Academic Department Associate in the CST, is planning a trip this summer to visit her daughter Becky Pillsbury (CST graduate) who is an event planner for Big Brothers/ Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee. Becky graduated in fall, 2003 with a CST major/ emphasis in Interpersonal Communication. Her responsibilities at Big Brothers/ Big Sisters include processing volunteer and child inquiries and applications, organizing and executing group meetings, planning activities and ceremonies, and organizing a “Team Rio” half-marathon to be held this summer to benefit the organization. On her summer trip to the region, Joyce is planning to see a lot of the sites in the Smoky Mountains area and check out retirement opportunities in Waynesboro, NC.
Social science involvement
Dr. Doug Swanson has been named to the 2006-07 editorial board of The Social Science Journal. Dr. Swanson has two papers accepted for presentation at the Western Social Science Association convention in April, 2006.
CST 301 students try podcasting
During the fall semester, students in Dr. Rick Rodrick’s CST 301 Theories of Communication class developed podcasts about important theories of communication that are not covered in our text. It's a fun assignment for the students with the additional goal of creating a library of podcasts students can access as they work on their undergraduate research in CST 302 Research Methods and CST 499 Senior Project. It’s also a neat addition to our CST web site.
The first set of four podcasts is now available on the CST web site. The theories are the Elaboration Likelihood Model, Parasocial Relationship theory, the Spiral of Silence, and Interpersonal Deception Theory. They are a bit rough but they're fun. They clearly demonstrate the potential for the medium and the creativity of CST students!
Here's the link, check them out!