engagement – Page 2 – Rahul Mitra

Reflecting on W2015 COM 4500 Leadership Communication service learning project with TechTown Detroit

It’s summer at Wayne State University, but before we leave the Winter 2015 Semester too far behind, I want to take the time to recall and celebrate a wonderful collaboration with Detroit-based innovation hub and entrepreneurial development space, TechTown. It was through Dean Matt Seeger at the WSU College of Fine, Performing, and Communication Arts that I met with TechTown’s outgoing chairperson, Leslie Smith, and her amazing team of “warriors.” Leslie was fascinated to learn about organizational communication, and the different perspectives of organizational practice a communicative perspective to research can help explore. And she was especially interested in my proposal to use TechTown as a research site for my undergraduate Leadership Communication (COM 4500) class for W2015.

Three sustainable organizing/communicating implications of #NCSE2015 Energy & Climate Change Summit

Back home in Detroit, I find myself reflecting on some of the key themes evident in the policy talk surrounding the National Council for Science and the Environment’s 15th national conference, on Energy and Climate Change (See my earlier post looking forward to NCSE HERE). In particular, I find myself returning to THREE main implications for organizing broader collectives, social movements, and formal organizations — and the communicative elements that characterize these.

Research Talks at the 2014 International Communication Association: Hello, Seattle! :)

Seattle is a gorgeous, gorgeous city, with some amazing people, buildings, and food, and I’m thrilled to be in the middle of things right now for the annual conference of the International Communication Association! This is a bittersweet occasion; on the one hand, this is my first appearance here at ICA as a faculty member, representing Wayne State University, yet on the other hand, the conference marks the end of my two-year term as Student Board Member, a profoundly insightful position. During my two years, I have enjoyed working with the ICA leadership to set up some fantastic new opportunities and structures to enable graduate student members of the ICA in their professional development, and I’m sure that my successors will do an even more awesome job, extending these initiatives. So, as I bid adieu to this post, I’m settling for a wonderful few days in Seattle, exploring and experiencing the city, and engaging in some wonderful research with my Communication colleagues.

Communicating that Research is Inherently Practical and Applied

Exhorting academics to talk candidly and plainly about their research with broader publics is not exactly new. What IS new, though, in this recent op-ed piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, is linking it explicitly to the research-generation goal of a university, which most policymakers and publics seem to be in the dark about, or conflate with imparting particular “skills” for the job market, or “applied” research that answers a localized question in a particular setting (e.g., how can we get legislators in Wyoming to buy into man-made climate change?).

But the goal of research, and academics in general, is deeper than that, the article points out.

How can we “translate” Sustainability effectively?

At the close of my recent talk on “Organizing/Communicating Sustainably” at Central Michigan University, someone in the audience asked me, predictably enough, what hope there was for meaningful systemic change, given the preponderance of cultural, structural, and moral obstacles both in the U.S. and worldwide.

My response hinged around the very communicative concept of translation.

Upcoming Talk at Central Michigan U.: “Communication and Social Action” Conference

I am so thrilled to be headed to Central Michigan University next week, to deliver a talk at the 15th annual “Communication and Social Action” conference, organized by the Department of Communication and Dramatic Arts! My talk is tentatively titled “Organizing/Communicating Sustainably” — not very original, perhaps, given the title of this website, but representative nevertheless of my program of research, which explains my thrill.

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