higher education – Page 2

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.

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.

Graduate Student Publishing: Collaborative Research

Given the increasing importance for both the academic job market and bagging research grants for collaborative research, it’s important to talk about team scholarship processes in some depth. Specifically: when, why, how, and with whom should you collaborate with on a research project?

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.

Graduate Student Publishing: Knowing Where to Submit

A version of this post appeared in the monthly newsletter of the International Communication Association, as the Student Board Member Column (March 2014).

What should graduate students take into account, when selecting an outlet for their research? To me, 3 main aspects stand out: researching the characteristics of potential journal outlets, finding out more about the editorial board, and keeping abreast of “calls for papers” via online listservs.

Engaging Students: CSR meets Higher Education

This post also appeared in CSRWire Talkback.

I had the good fortune of attending the recently concluded Water Summit 2012 in Milwaukee. A key theme that kept coming up, over and over was engaging youth.

Whether it was in references to the exchange program between American and Indian universities to promote aquaponics among water- and land-scarce communities, or connecting women-and-child literacy programs to indigenous water management systems, engaging future generations was salient throughout the two-day event.

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