NCA 2024

Ganesh, other faculty and students honored at NCA
Shiv Ganesh

 

The department once again had a very strong presence at the National Communication Association (NCA) convention in New Orleans, LA. On Thursday of the conference we hosted a very popular booth at the open house for graduate programs. Graduate Advisor René Dailey was joined by staff members Jennifer Betancourt and Jenn Porras along with multiple volunteers as we recruited potential applicants to our graduate programs. The department also hosted its annual Texas Party on Saturday evening of the conference. Crescent City Brewhouse was the location for this popular gathering as we reconnected with program alums and other friends of the department. Special thanks to Interim Dean Anita Vangelisti for her support in helping make this annual event possible. At both events, the department proudly celebrated its 125th anniversary as an organized department.

Students and faculty at NCA booth

Department members won several awards/honors at the conference. Most notably, Shiv Ganesh was selected as a Distinguished Scholar of NCA. He was among a very select group of 5 individuals inducted into this group in 2024. The association gives out the Distinguished Scholar Award for excellence in research, teaching, and service. Congratulations, Shiv. 

Among the other special award winners were the following:

  • Scott Stroud, Outstanding Book Award for "The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction" from the Spiritual Communication Division
  • David Rooney, Christine L. Oravec Research Award in Environmental Communication for his article (with coauthors) Long Live the Liver King: Right-wing carnivorism and the digital dissemination of primal rhetoric published in Frontiers in Communication. 
  • Ellen Alley, “Excellence in Nonverbal Pedagogy Award” from the Nonverbal Communication Division. 

Other award winners included the following top paper panel authors: 

  • Nicholas A. Palomares, Leona Yinglang Pang, Moo Sun Kim, Caroline Murray, and Karissa Hernandez (and others) for Misinformation and trust in machines: Algorithmic fact-checkers are influential even on claims with established veracity from the Communication and Social Cognition Division.
  • Braidyn Lazenby, Ashley Guidry, Erin Donovan, and René Dailey (and others) for Speaking stoma: Creating a communication guide for people with an ostomy from the Applied Communication Division.
  • Emily Norman for My love for humans will never fade”: Exploring new materialism, the beheading of hitchbot, and robotics from a posthumanist perspective from the Communication and the Future Division.
  • Olivia Sara Gellar for Idealizing individualism: The Civitas Institute’s threat to public good from Freedom of Expression Division.
  • Xiaotong Liu, Mir Rabby, and Jeremy Martin for Artificial intelligence in higher education: A thematic analysis of ChatGPT in discourse on top student paper panel in the Instructional Development Division. 
  • Nicole Butterbaugh for There should be no such thing as the Paralympics. Change my view. A qualitative analysis of stigma management from the Communication and Sport Division.
  • Jamie Jelinek for Tesla’s unethical attunements: An ambient route to accountability in an AI-driven world on Top Student Paper panel in Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division.
  • Katie Bradford (and others) for Cite it! Oral citations with the DATA framework in the Great Ideas for Teaching Students (G.I.F.T.S) Division.
  • Jonathan Espinoza was selected to chair the Top Paper panel in the Activism & Social Justice Division.

Congrats to all the award winners and to all those who helped make our quasquicentennial year at NCA special.

People at NCA event