Department of Communication

The UTA Department of Communication is proud of the accomplishments of its faculty and staff and prides itself on the engaged, passionate personalities that make up the department. Several faculty members are the recent recipients of university and college teaching awards this year.

Mindia Whittier, Public Relations senior instructor, is recipient of the University’s 2013 William S. Ward Endowment Award honoring a non-tenure track faculty member for excellence in teaching.

 

Established to honor the life and contributions of UT Arlington faculty member Bill Ward, this prize recognizes a non-tenure track faculty member “with an exemplary work ethic, who loves working with students, and who makes a significant impact on enhancing the goals of the University.” Whittier received the award April 22 at the Faculty Awards event.

 

Dr. Andrew Clark is this year’s recipient of the College of Liberal Art’s (COLA) Gertrude Golladay Award. The award is voted on by students to honor a top instructor.

 

Radio broadcast instructor Lance Liguez received the COLA Dean’s Accolade Award for the 2012-13 academic year. The award is presented to educators who inspire students to create work of exceptional merit.

 

Journalism instructor Geoff Campbell was awarded this year’s COLA Outstanding Adjunct Instructor honor.

 

Congratulations to our faculty members for these well-deserved honors!

While you were busy passing out candy hearts to your classmates Assistant Professor Mark Tremayne was being interviewed by local media.

Many of our Department of Communication faculty and staff are routinely quoted in media and publications.

Professor Tremayne weighed in on the pros and cons of digital dating in the Star Telegram article. Check out the following link to read the story.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02/13/4620347/your-facebook-or-mine-dating-in.html#storylink=misearch

The University of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa has invited Associate Professor Eronini Megwa to serve as an external examiner for a doctoral examination of Bevelyn Dube, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Journalism. The title of the dissertation is "Challenges for Journalism Education and Training in a Transforming Society: A Case study of Three Selected Institutions in Post-1994 South Africa".

Dr. Chunke Su recently had a journal article published by IADIS International Journal on WWW/Internet. The title of the article is: “Hub” or “Bridge”? The Effects of Social Network Centralities on Expertise Discovery, Information Retrieval And Allocation, and Use of Digital Knowledge Repositories. A previous version of this paper was selected as one of the Best Papers of the "IADIS International Conference on ICT, Human Beings 2012.”

Melyssa Prince, a graduate of the Department of Communication Master's program, has been named the 2012 Communicator of the Year by the Dallas chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Founded in 1970, The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is a San Francisco-based, not-for-profit trade association for business communications professionals with approximately 16,000 members and 100 chapters. The association was founded in 1970.

The Dallas chapter of IABC supports the international organization through conference planning assistance and local recruitment efforts, and serves its members with professional development and networking opportunities. http://dallas.iabc.com/

Chapter membership includes a cross-section of marketing and communication leaders from Fortune 100 corporations,global marketing service firms and boutique agencies.

 

Department of Communication faculty have been featured in the media in recent weeks.

 

Department of Communication lecturer Geoff Campbell mused about turning 50 in a Nov. 4 op-ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was not to have a party.

 

"I always wanted to live the kind of life that would give me great memories, to have 'fragments I have shored against my ruins,' to take T.S. Eliot out of context," Campbell wrote. "And that's what I have, along with a singular hope of building more. I'm turning 50, an age the commercials tell us is an age of getting things done. As long as those things don't include a party, that's precisely what I intend to do."

 

The entire article can be found at http://tinyurl.com/bw6sed5

 

 The big media story emerging from President Obama’s reelection is the fact that so many on the right were so stunned by the results, The Christian Science Monitor reported in a story that featured Mark Tremayne, assistant professor at UT Arlington. Tremayne said this selective perception of the race was driven in part by an unprecedented explosion of polling this cycle. Many of these polls were conducted by the campaigns themselves, he points out. Tremayne was also interviewed about the election by WCRX/88.1 FM

 

Here's the link to the Christian Science Monitor story:

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Vox-News/2012/1107/Surprise-at-Obama-s-victory-illustrates-growing-partisan-divide-in-US-media

Broadcast lecturer Julian M. Rodriguez appeared on Channel: Telefutura 49 to promote UTA News en Español and the Department of Communication this morning.

If you missed Rodriguez in action, check out the following link to view the entire story: http://univisiondallas.univision.com/comunidad/videos-de-vive-la-manana/video/2012-09-12/uta-news-en-espanol

 

 

While many students take the summer months off from classes, Department of Communication faculty members are busy presenting research papers and attending educational conferences.

Here's a look at what some of our faculty members were up to this summer.

Dr. Tom Christie and Dr. Andrew Clark presented their co-authored paper, "Cultivating Images of the Enemy in Media: A Content Analysis of Popular War Cartoons" at the George Gerbner Conference on Communication, Conflict, and Aggression in Budapest, Hungary this summer.

Dr. Sheetal Patel had two co-authored papers accepted for publication. “Parents of children with eating disorders: Developing theory-based health communication messages to promote caregiver wellbeing” was published in Journal of Health Communication. “Teaching Advertising Media Planning in a Changing Media Landscape” was published in Journal of Advertising Education.
Dr. Chunke Su had two co-authored manuscripts accepted for publication in August. One will be published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology and one in The Journal for East European Management Studies.

Dr. Eronini Megwa presented a paper in July at the annual conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Durban, South Africa. The Paper is titled, "Media and Poverty Index (MAPX): A Framework for Analyzing the Relationship Between Media Access and Poverty Reduction."

Dr. Megwa is also working with Sage Publications as an associate editor this summer. Dr. Megwa will be working with reviewers from all over the world in the social sciences and humanities to review and edit manuscripts for SAGE's online journal, SAGE Open Scholar One Manuscript.

Dr. Brian Horton presented two solo-authored conference papers at the International Conference on Language and Social Psychology in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands in June 20-23. The papers are entitled “Communication of and about religious/spiritual identity in the workplace” and “Easy to opt-in, hard to opt out: A comparison of subscription and unsubscription messages in e-mails and websites.”

Dr. Dustin Harp presented co-authored papers at several conferences this summer:
“Alternative Media in a Digital Era: Comparing Information Use Among U.S. and Latin American Activists” was presented to the Communication Technology Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference in Chicago this summer.
“Co-opting feminism: Media discourses on political women and the definition of a (new) feminist identity” was presented to the Feminist Media Studies Division, International Communication Association annual conference in Phoenix.
Harp presented the paper “Indian activists’ use of social networking sites (SNS): An exploratory study” to the Division, International Communication Association annual conference.

Broadcast lecturer Lance Liguez put his voice talents to work serving as public service announcer for the Grand Prairie Air Hogs Labor Day weekend. Liguez landed the gig thanks to Journalism student Matt Sneed who runs his own freelance photography and videography company.  Check out Matt’s website at http://www.mattsneedcreative.com/.

Communication lecturer Mike Putnam is serving as coach-on-site at the Dallas UT-MBA location at UT-Southwestern Medical Center. Putnam is working with MBA students on oral and written communication skills.

Department of Communication lecturer Geoff Campbell wrote a chapter for a new media writing textbook – “Writing for media audiences: A handbook for multi-platform news” – published in fall 2012 by Kendall Hunt. Campbell’s chapter provides students with guidance on when to attribute information in news articles, advertisements, and public relations literature pieces. Campbell is the author of seven non-fiction books and served as a researcher for Jeff Guinn on his “Our Land Before We Die: The Proud Story of the Seminole Negro,” winner of the 2003 Texas Book Award and the TCU Distinguished Award for the best book about Texas. Campbell has extensive professional writing experience that includes work for weekly newsletters, daily newspapers, magazines, a bank trade association, a public relations firm, and a wire service. He has been a full-time lecturer at UT-Arlington since January 2009.

Comm Studies lecturer Melanie Mason lent her directing skills to Theatre Arlington this summer, directing the production Hollywood Arms. Pegasus News’ reviewer Chad Bearden complimented Mason on her vision for the show, noting: “And credit should go to Director Melanie Mason for coaxing very nice performances from a very fine cast. An audience member can never be quite sure how much of an interesting performance is the specific choices of an actor and how much it is the vision of the director. However much direct influence she may have had, Mason pulls together several varied approaches of confronting the material into a cohesive whole.”

 

Dr. Tom Christie and Dr. Andrew Clark presented their co-authored paper entitled "Cultivating Images of the Enemy in Media: A Content Analysis of Popular War Cartoons" at the George Gerbner Conference on Communication, Conflict, and Aggression held June 1 and 2 in Budapest, Hungary.

Senior Lecturer Mindia Whittier has been chosen Adjunct Instructor of the Year by the students in the College of Liberal Arts. Whittier was recognized at the College of Liberal Arts Accolades event held April 19 in Irons Recital Hall.

 

Department of Communication instructors Sandie Idziak and Roby McEuen were honored for their years of service to the university at an employee recognition ceremony. The event, held April 18 in Hereford University Center, recognized faculty and employees who have worked at UTA for 10, 15 and 20 years. Lecturer Sandie Idziak has taught Speech Communication classes for 20 years. Specialist Roby McEuen has taught at the University for 10 years.

 

Lecturer Melyssa Prince has earned accreditation from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). The process entails being accepted as a candidate, presenting a portfolio of work that demonstrates an ability to research, plan, execute and measure communication plans, followed by a 4.5-hour exam. The exam is comprised of a four-hour written portion and a 30-minute oral defense.

 

“I was given a crisis scenario and had to come up with a plan of action and convince a panel of other accredited communicators that the plan was solid. The portfolio and exam are evaluated by members of the international organization,” Ms. Prince explains. “After a lot of waiting, I received the word that I had been granted accreditation status. I am very proud to have achieved the ABC designation.”

Kim Pewitt-Jones, Journalism lecturer, has been awarded a scholarship to the Society of Professional Journalist’s National Ted Scripps Leadership Institute.

Named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of The E.W. Scripps Company, the Ted Scripps Leadership Institute provides journalists with tools to make local SPJ chapters stronger and continues to build that network of support for leaders at the local level.

Funding is provided through the Scripps Howard Foundation by Ted's sons, Edward W. Scripps Jr. and William H. Scripps, as a way to honor their father's memory. The institute will be held June 1-3 in Indianapolis.

Department of Communication instructors Sandie Idziak and Roby McEuen were honored for their years of service to the university at an employee recognition ceremony.

 

The event, held April 18 in Hereford University Center, recognized faculty and employees who have worked at UTA for 10, 15 and 20 years.

 

Lecturer Sandie Idziak has taught Speech Communication classes for 20 years. Specialist Roby McEuen has taught graphics classes at the University for 10 years.

Congratulations to the newest members of the Department of Communication family

Department of Communication Assistant Professor Karishma Chatterjee and her husband, Matthew Cox, welcomed their daughter, Schuyler Pamlyn Chatterjee-Cox, at 11:28 a.m. April 15. Schuyler weighed 5 pounds, 6 ounces.

 

Department of Communication Administrative Assistant Paula Branen and husband. Nick, welcomed Claire Avery Branen to the family March 6. Claire weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces.

 

 

 

Department of Communication faculty members have had several papers accepted for publication in recent weeks.

Dr. Dustin Harp is first author on a paper titled "The Whole Online World is Watching: Profiling Social Networking Sites and Activists in China, Latin America, and the United States" recently published in the International Journal of Communication 6 (2012). Her co-authors are from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and the University of Texas at Austin.

"PR Practitioners' Use of Social Media in Crisis Planning," an article co-authored by Assistant Professor Shelley Wigley, has been selected for presentation at the PRSA International Conference, Oct. 14-16 in San Francisco as part of the professional development session "The Best of PRSA's Public Relations Journal of 2011-2012. Each year a sub-committee of the Journal's Editorial Review Board selects five articles that become part of the annual "Best of Public Relations Journal" competition and are presented at PRSA's International Conference, the world's largest annual gathering of public relations practitioners.

Dr. Wigley also had the paper, "Breaking News Coverage: A Comparison of Sources used in the Coverage of the Shootings at Virginia Tech and Tucson, Arizona," accepted for presentation at the International Communication Association 2012 conference in Phoenix.

Journalism Professor Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith won Top Faculty Paper in the History Division's research paper competition for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The paper was presented in March at the annual southeast colloquium in Blacksburg, Va. The paper is entitled "'Political Demagogues and Overzealous Partisans': Tariff of Abominations and Secession Rhetoric in the 1828 South Carolina Press."

Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Mark Tremayne's study "Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street," has been selected for the International Communication Association conference this month.

Department of Communication graduate students James Dunning and Michael Agee presented a paper, “When ‘Oops, Sorry’ Isn’t Enough: Tiger Woods and Image Repair,” at the University of North Texas Student Conference in March.

Several Department of Communication faculty members have had papers accepted for conference presentation in recent weeks.

Assistant Professor Dr. Mark Tremayne's study "Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street," has been selected for the International Communication Association conference in May, 2012.

 

Dr. Shelley Wigley has had the paper, "Breaking News Coverage: A Comparison of Sources used in the Coverage of the Shootings at Virginia Tech and Tucson, Arizona," accepted for presentation at the International Communication Association 2012 conference in Phoenix.

Journalism Professor Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith won Top Faculty Paper in the History Division's research paper competition for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The paper will be presented at the annual southeast colloquium, taking place March 8-10 in Blacksburg, Va. The paper is entitled "'Political Demagogues and Over-zealous Partisans': Tariff of Abominations and Secession Rhetoric in the 1828 South Carolina Press."

 

Communicaton Department lecturer Melanie Mason will join other UTA alumni, faculty and undergraduates to present The Lion in Winter as part of this year's homecoming activities.

The play, by James Goldman, will be presented at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10 in University Center's Rosebud Theatre. There is no admission charge to attend.

Directed by Dr. Dennis Maher, the cast includes Ms, Mason, Michael Prescott, Jessica Dismuke, Brian Prescott, Andras Bodolai, Jackie Pickard and Alan Cooke. The show is stagemanaged by Amanda Halupnik and Cathy Pritchett with lighting design by Roger Owens.

Photos Courtesy of Tracey Davis

Two of Dr. Dustin Harp's research papers have been accepted for presentation at the International Communication Association annual conference, to be held in Phoenix in May.

The titles of the research are: "Co-opting feminism: Media discourses on political women and the definition of a (new) feminist identity" (with J. Loke and I. Bachmann) and "Indian activists’ use of social networking sites (SNS): An exploratory study" with (M. Chadha).

Dr. Andrew Clark and Dr. Tom Christie were awarded first place in the open category of the International Division paper competition for the Broadcast Education Association conference.

Dr.’s Clark and Christie will present their paper “Bypassing Traditional Media through Shortwave Radio: Expanding the Model of Value Equivalence” at the BEA conference in Las Vegas in April.

Dr. Shelley Wigley is taking the spring semester away from the classroom to spend time researching several projects. Dr. Wigley is working on a co-authored project about negative Facebook posts on organizational pages and their impact on stakeholder.

“I also will be looking at how social media managers deal with negative posts,” Dr. Wigley explained. “I will be proposing some new ideas on image restoration and how celebrities and politicians can respond to negative situations.”

Dr. Wigley will also continue her research on crisis communication, social media and media relations.

Dr. Wigley also had an article published in the Public Relations Journal. The article is titled "A Study of PR Practitioners’ Use of Social Media in Crisis Planning."

Communication instructor Michael Putnam was part of a bimonthly lecture series featuring professionals from the business and campus community for the Society for Human Resources Management. Putnam offered advice on the art of networking and mastering common interview questions. Putnam was featured in a Nov. 29 article in The Shorthorn.

Assistant Professor Dr. Chunke Su’s sole-authored article entitled "Who knows who knows what in the group? The effects of communication network centralities, use of digital knowledge repositories and work remoteness on organizational members' accuracy in expertise recognition" has been accepted for publication in Communication Research.

Communication Research is an internationally peer-reviewed top-tier journal, ranked 6 out of 67 in the field of Communication by ISI 2010 Journal Citation Reports.

Assistant Professor Mark Tremayne submitted a paper entitled "Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street" to the International Communication Association (Communication Technology division).

Tremayne was also quoted in a recent Advertising Age article detailing the declining audience for childrens’ television shows. http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/kids-nets-face-mystery-missing-children/231199/

Shelley Wigley, assistant professor of public relations, recently had an article titled, "The Giffords shootings in Tucson: Exploring citizen-generated versus news media content in crisis management," published in Public Relations Review.

Erika Pribanic-Smith had a paper accepted for publication in the October 2012 issue of Journalism History. It is titled "Rhetoric of Fear: South Carolina Newspapers and the State and National Politics of 1830."

Mike Putnam, full-time Communication lecturer, has been asked to speak before the UTA Honors Engineering Society Pi Tau Sigma at the group’s Oct. 7 noon meeting.

Putnam will be providing honor society members information on job interviewing tips, cover letter and resume writing and general employment advice.

“I was honored to be invited by one of my former students and appreciate the opportunity to share with these bright engineering students,” Putnam said.

Department of Communication Chair Charla Markham Shaw, Professor Andrew Clark and Professor Sasha Grant have been selected as joint recipients of an Alicia Wilkerson Smotherman Faculty Award, made possible through the generosity of Thad and Alicia Smotherman.

The College of Liberal Arts award recognizes faculty whose research expertise and teaching abilities have inspired students to create work of exceptional merit which goes beyond the ordinary expectations for class assignments. Examples include creative, community or research projects resulting from teaching on the undergraduate and graduate levels. The primary criterion is the connection between the faculty member’s scholarly and creative abilities and their impact on the educational and professional development of students at UTA.

The Communication professors were nominated because of their work with students in developing a new master’s level course in Qualitative Research Methods, team-taught in three different qualitative methodologies. This course received an IEngage Seed Grant for Graduate Course Development and provided significant data for the Freshman Retention Initiative.

Recipients of Alicia Wilkerson Smotherman Faculty Awards will be recognized on Tuesday, Oct. 25, at an evening event held in the home of Thad and Alicia Smotherman.

Broadcast lecturer Julian Rodriguez and Department of Communication engineer Joseph Carter teamed up to make a special presentation for the local chapter of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE).

The hour-long presentation, titled “Digital Media Compression, Streaming, and Workflows,” was streamed online for a national audience Sept. 29. Sponsored by ProAudio.com, the presentation was streamed using the NewTek Tricaster TCXD-850 Extreme.

Carter discussed compression and streaming, and Rodriguez shared his knowledge on production workflows, education, and technical issues faced by media professionals.

"It was a pleasure and an honor to be asked to make this presentation and share our experience with broadcast colleagues," Rodriguez added. "Technology plays such an integral role in media today, and it's imperative that we collaborate and find new and innovative ways to share information."

It isn't often that we run into world leaders at local dining spots. This week, Journalism lecturer Kim Pewitt-Jones did just that.

While attending the Sept. 14 meeting of Society of Professional Journalists, Fort Worth chapter, Journalism lecturer Pewitt-Jones got the opportunity to meet Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico.

"We discovered that the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, was in the restaurant that evening. One one of our guests knew him and his publicist Juan Martin Hernandez," explained Pewitt-Jones, who serves as SPJ chapter president.

Pewitt-Jones and the event panelists posed with Fox and his publicist and have been posting their pics on Facebook.

“The SPJ meeting focused on how to provide better media coverage for ethnic issues—one of those groups being Hispanics,” Pewitt-Jones said. “But, what a surprise--I didn’t expect to meet a famous Hispanic leader such as Vicente Fox that night.”

Panelists for the event, "What are local media missing in coverage of ethnic issues," included NBC-5 reporter Susy Solis, Arlington Businesswoman and Community Leader Cindy Dao, and Eddie Griffin, author and activist for the African-American Community.

For more info on the Fort Worth chapter of Society of Professional Journalists, check out http://www.spjfw.org

When full-time lecturer Allen Sheffield isn’t in the classroom, chances are, you’ll find him with a camera slung around his neck.

The avid photographer loves to travel and often documents his trips with amazing photographs. One of Sheffield’s photographs was recently selected in KERA’s Photo of the Week contest.

“Dallas Farmers Market 2” was chosen as the winner of the Flickr Photo of the Week and was featured on KERA’s Art&Seek website. Congratulations!

Broadcast Lecturer Julian Rodriguez recently held a two-day video editing and production seminar for seven area Hispanic media professionals. Several of the attendees are based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but report for media outlets in Venezuela and Mexico.

Dr. Dustin Harp, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, had the following research projects accepted for publication this summer:

Baek, K., Holton, A., Harp, D. & Yaschur, C. (2011). The links that bind: Uncovering novel motivations for linking on Facebook, Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 2243-2248, [Available online, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.07.003].

Harlow, S. & Harp, D. (2011). Collective action on the web: A cross-cultural study of social networking sites and online and offline activism in the United States and Latin America. Information, Communication & Society, [Available online, doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2011.591411].

Baresch, B., Knight, L, Harp, D. & Yaschur, C. (2011). Friends who choose your news: An analysis of content links on Facebook. ISOJ Journal, 1(2), 65-85.
Correa, T. & Harp, D. (2011). Women matter in newsrooms: How power and critical mass relate to the coverage of the HPV vaccine. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 88(2), 301-319.

Students in Shelley Wigley's PR Campaigns class will be developing a public relations campaign plan and implementing a portion of it for the Movin' Mavs wheelchair basketball team during Fall '11 semester.

Four groups of students will conduct primary research, develop an in-depth campaign plan and present it to the client. Each group also will implement a project or event on behalf of the Movin' Mavs team, explained Dr. Wigley, assistant professor of public relations. At least one of the student groups will plan and launch a fundraising project for the team.

"This is a service learning course," Dr. Wigley said. "Through this course, PR students get real-world experience working for an actual client while contributing and giving back to the community."

The goal of the project is to increase community awareness about the Movin' Mavs program, increase public understanding of the need for athletic sports programs for the disabled, and increase funding for the Movin' Mavs wheelchair basketball program.

"By working directly with -- and advising a client -- throughout the semester, students are able to utilize the public relations skills they've learned in previous PR classes," Dr. Wigley added. "The class functions much like an internship and gives students insight into what it will be like to work in the public relations field."

Journalism professor Erika Pribanic-Smith’s research paper "South Carolina’s Rhetorical Civil War: Unionist and Free Trade Presses during the Nullification Crisis, 1832-1833" has been accepted for presentation at the National Convention of American Journalism Historians Association. The convention will be in Kansas City in October.

Communication Instructor Mike Putnam is sharing his skills outside the classroom this summer. In July, Putnam worked with the UTA McNair Scholars on strategic communication skills.

“I  provided instructional tips on organization and delivery of the special projects each of the students has been working on under the guidance of their faculty mentors,” said Putnam, who has been involved with the McNair Scholars for the past decade.

In addition, Putnam will be working with members of the Midwest section of the Texas American Planning Association (APA), a non-profit group of professional planners. The group provides city and community planners a forum for sharing information on planning, general professional development, legislation, law, ethics, etc.

Putnam will be discussing informative and persuasive strategies to help the planners better communicate with citizen groups regarding zoning cases and other community issues

“I enjoy interacting with the business community because it gives me a chance to see real-life problems and offer possible solutions,” Putnam said. “This kind of corporate and civic experience is easily translated to the classroom environment.”

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Dr. Karishma Chatterjee and Department of Communication Chair Dr. Charla Markham Shaw’s co-authored paper has been accepted for publication. "Media Portrayals of the Female Condom," has been accepted by The Journal of Health Communication for publication. The journal is ranked 9/55 among the rated Communication journals listed and 22/66 in information science and library science according to the Journal Citation Reports.

Dr. Shelley Wigley, assistant professor in the Department of Communication, has been awarded a 2011 Educator\'s Fellowship from the Plank Center at the University of Alabama. Wigley will intern with Southern Company, a major electrical provider in Georgia and Alabama, later this summer.

Dr. Andrew Clark and Dr. Tom Christie, Associate Professors in the Department of Communication, have been awarded first place by the International Division of the Broadcast Education Association for their co-authored paper “A Clash of Cultures: Reaching Hostile Audiences Through International Broadcasting.” The paper was presented at the organization’s annual conference in Las Vegas.

Journalism professor Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith’s research paper "Riding the Coattails of Revolutionaries and Republicans: Partisan Rhetoric and the Rise of the Nullification Party in 1831 South Carolina\\\" has been accepted for presentation. It will be presented in August at the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication National Convention in St. Louis.

Dr. Andrew Clark, Associate Professor/Broadcast Sequence Coordinator, and Julian Rodriguez, broadcast lecturer, recently trained students from Fort Worth’s Southwest High School to use news production hardware and software. The students are representing Texas in SkillsUSA, a national media competition in Kansas City, MO.

Department of Communication Chair Dr. Charla Markham Shaw and Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Dr. Karishma Chatterjee's co-authored paper has been accepted for publication. "Media Portrayals of the Female Condom," has been accepted by The Journal of Health Communication for publication. The journal is ranked 9/55 among the rated Communication journals listed and 22/66 in information science and library science according to the Journal Citation Reports.

Communication Lecturer Allen Sheffield was invited to speak at the Feb. 24 meeting of Pi Tau Sigma - Honorary Mechanical Engineering Society.

"One of the members of Pi Tau Sigma (a student in my COMS 3302 class) asked me to give a short presentation about how to prepare for and what to expect during an employment interview," Mr. Sheffield said.

Prior to his teaching career, Mr. Sheffield served as the regional human resources manager for Toys "R" Us.

"During my last 10 years there, I did all of the recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and training of management personnel," he explained. "I was happy to share my experiences with the students."

John Macejak, Melinda Long and Lynda Arnold, the Department of Communication advisors, have been nominated for this year's Outstanding Advisor Award.

"All three of our incredible advisors were nominated this year," remarked Department Chair Charla L. Markham Shaw. "We're so appreciative of our advisors for their contributions to the success of our students and our department. Congratulations to John, Melinda, and Lynda!"

The Outstanding Academic Advisor Award program, started in the 1984-1985 academic year, recognizes distinguished advisors who strive to uphold the University's pursuit of academic excellence. These individuals develop and nurture relationships and work closely with UTA's student population, and the University and community at large.

Roby B. McEuen, Department of Communication Graphic Specialist, judged the American Advertising Federation 10th District Small Advertising Club ADDY competition on Jan. 22.

The ADDYs are a three-tiered advertising competition that starts at the local level. Gold and sliver ADDY winners are then forwarded on to their district ADDY competition. District winners advance on to the national AAF ADDY competition and compete against other district winners from across the United State.

McEuen has served as a judge for the ADDY awards since 2001. "There are a number of reasons I like judging. It is a fun and easy way to keep up with what is happening in the advertising industry. Judging allows me to see work being created in different parts of the state of Texas and around the country," McEuen said. "This gives me a broader perspective on advertising in general. I get to meet and visit with other professionals in other markets and talk about industry trends, concerns and opportunities. Finally, it is just a lot of fun!"