From
the President’s Desk
Sandra
Petronio, Wayne State University
Now that the convention for
2001 has ended, I trust that each of you had a productive and enjoyable
experience in Coeur d’Alene. As we look toward next year’s conference in
Long Beach, President Elect Kathy Adams has many exciting ideas she is
pursuing. We encourage you to submit your papers and panels and come to the
2002 WSCA conference in Long Beach.
Before we
leave this year’s convention behind, however, some 
acknowledgments are in
order. First, WSCA thanks Dawn O. Braithwaite for her service to association
as President. Besides her stimulating speech, she has given significant time
and energy to WSCA—thank you Dawn. Second, WSCA thanks Betsy Bach, our local
host and David Cornelius, Jeff Stafford, and John Gribas for their
contributions to the 2001 convention. We would also like to recognize Wendy
Netz and the staff at the Coeur d’Alene Resort for their never-ending
assistance. A special thanks goes out to my assistants, David Cichocki,
Heather Seipke Stuckey, and Mary Claire Morr. Congratulations are definitely
in order to all of the 2001 planners. Thanks for all of your extremely hard
work on the convention, it paid off!!!
Congratulations
to Bill Wilmot for his distinguished service to WSCA. Bill has made a
significant impact on the association and its members. The guidance and
stewardship of WSCA that he has willingly and tireless offered has benefited
us all—thanks Bill.
Congratulations
to John Sloop for wining the Fisher Award, definitively well deserved.
Thanks for selecting WJC as a publication outlet!
Congratulations
to two sets of Dicken’s Award recipients for their outstanding articles,
first, co-authors, Laura Guerrero and Walid Afifi and second, co-authors
Daniel Weigel and Deborah Ballard-Reisch. Thanks for your contributions!
As
we turn to next year’s convention, the Executive Council would like to alert
you to concerns regarding registering at the conference hotel, the Westin. We
need your help. Many of you may not realize that when participants do not stay
at the convention hotel, we lose money for WSCA. The Association has to
guarantee a certain number of participants will register at the conference
hotel. Your association pays whether or not the targeted numbers of people
guaranteed to stay actually register at the hotel.
So, please help WSCA and stay at the Westin. We have negotiated good
room rates and we encourage you to take advantage of them. Thanks in advance
for your help to WSCA.
REMEMBER
WSCA LONG BEACH AND SUBMIT YOUR FINE WORK!!!!
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WSCA
Election Results
The
results of the elections for 2001-2002 officers was announced at the WSCA
Convention in Coeur d’Alene. Connie
Bullis was elected 1st Vice President and John Cagle was elected 2nd
Vice President. Elected to the
Legislative Assembly positions were Barbara Gayle, John Oetzel, John Caputo,
and Christina Beck.
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Membership
Benefits
WSCA
is a premier professional association. Of
course, WSCA provides the usual sort of professional services to support our
scholarship—a major national convention and two high quality scholarly
publications. More importantly,
it does these things in a supportive atmosphere of collegial camaraderie and
cordiality. It is often said that
in WSCA we “work hard and have fun.”
The
health of our discipline and the programs on our separate campuses is tied to
active professional associations, and WSCA is an integral piece of the
professional puzzle. But we
cannot have a vibrant and effective organization without a healthy membership,
both individuals and department memberships.
A handy membership
form (http://www.westcomm.org/membership/join.html/a>)
is on the WSCA website at http://www.westcomm.org/
and we need you to use it now to renew your membership.
The regular fee is only $40 and the student fee of $20 is still one of
the best bargains in the country. Life membership is possible through
different payment plans and is tax deductible.
Membership in WSCA is from January 1 to December 31 each year.
WSCA needs you to
remind your colleagues (and Department Chair) to renew their memberships and
to join us.
John
A. Cagle, 2nd Vice President
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Call
for Nominations
2002 WSCA Distinguished Service Award
The
Western States Communication Association's Distinguished Service Award
Committee seeks nominations for the Association's 2002 award.
WSCA's Distinguished Service Award honors persons who have made
significant and long-lasting contributions to WSCA and the
communication discipline. Recent
award winners include Bill Wilmot, U of Montana (2001), Jody Nyquist, U of
Washington (2000), David Natharius, CSU Fresno (1999), Robert Boren, Boise
State U (1998), and Lucy Keele, CSU Fullerton (1997).
The complete list of those honored in past years is available on the
WSCA website <www.westcomm.org>.
Nominations
should include a detailed listing of the nominee's accomplishments (and/or a
vita) and one or more letters describing the nominee's specific contributions
to WSCA and the discipline. Please
submit nominations no later than December 15, 2001.
We welcome and encourage electronically-submitted materials (use rich
text format, MS Word, or WordPerfect).
Direct
questions and nominations to the committee chair:
Stephanie
J. Coopman, Communication Studies, San
Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192-0112.
Telephone: 408-924-5366 (o); 408-924-5396 (f).
Email sjcoopman@yahoo.com
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WSCA
Model Teaching Program
Award
Call for Nominations
The Model Teaching
Program Award Committee is seeking nominations for the Teaching Program Award
to be presented at the next Western States Communication Association meeting
in Long Beach, California (March, 2002).
The award may be given to one or more speech or communication programs
from elementary schools, secondary schools, or community colleges based on the
following criteria:
1.
The program should reflect the breadth and depth of the communication
discipline.
2.
The program should have teaching personnel with specialized training
in communication.
3.
The program should integrate curricular and co-curricular activities.
4.
The program should have strong administrative support.
5.
The program should relate to the mission of the particular
institution.
Nominations must include at least two letters of support
(one of which should be from the school or college; the other should come
either from a former student or from someone outside the program) which detail
the program’s success in meeting the above criteria. Additional supporting documents, such as descriptions of
course curriculum and innovative teaching methods, are encouraged.
The deadline for nominations is November 1, 2001. The recipient(s) will
be notified in December and will present a panel on the Model Teaching Program
at the Long Beach Convention.
Nominations
should be sent to Wenshu Lee, Department of Communication Studies, HGH108, San
Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192-0112.
Questions regarding the award and/or the nomination process can be
directed to Wenshu Lee at (419) 373-0722, (408) 924-5371, or wenshulee@aol.com. Three other members of the selection committee are from
Communication and Instruction Interest Group, Community College Interest
Group, and Elementary and Secondary Education Interest Group.
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New
Editor of WSCA News and Web
Stephanie J. Coopman of San Jose State University has been appointed
the new Editor of WSCA News and Web.
She will begin her duties in July 2001.
Until then, please direct items for the newsletter and/or the website
to the current editor, John Cagle at California State University, Fresno.
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New
Conference Announcement
Dr.
Steven Chaffee, the Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication, is
hosting a conference on June 2, 2001, on the UC Santa Barbara campus.
The conference theme will be on lessons learned from studies of the
2000 national election campaign, including new ways of conceptualizing
election campaigns, large-scale studies of voters, uses of new communication
media such as the Internet, citizen information-seeking, and online data
collection or studies of website use in the place of traditional mass media.
For further information, please contact nennig@sscf.ucsb.edu.
Faye
Nennig, University of California at Santa Barbara
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2000
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD SPEECH HONORING
William W. Wilmot, University of Montana
FEBRUARY 2001, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Karen Rasmussen, California State University, Long Beach
Because
of what the Distinguished Service Award represents and the persons who have
received it, presenting it is both a privilege and an honor
Before talking about this year’s honoree, I’d like to do two
things. First, thank you to the other two members of this year’s
selection committee: Betsy Bach of the University of Montana and Dennis
Alexander of the University of Utah. Second, would all the people who’ve
received the Distinguished Service Award in the past please stand?
These people are indicative of the character of WSCA for they represent
a diverse tradition of teaching, scholarship, and service that speaks not only
to their own excellence but to the range of activities characteristic of the
folks who inhabit Western.
Now to this year’s recipient, who truly is a westerner. Raised
in the heart of the intermountain West, she or he was trained at two of our
universities and, with the exception of a brief sojourn in the midwest, has
spent his or her entire career within the confines of Western.
As a member of WSCA, he has held the following positions:
-
Program
Planner, First Vice-President, President-Elect, President, and Immediate
Past President of the association
-
Member
of the Executive Council for multiple years
-
Chair
and Vice-Chair of one of our organization’s interest groups
-
Member
and/or chair of several nominating and search committees
-
associate
editor for both the Western Journal of Communication and Communication
Reports.
As
a scholar, she or he has contributed systematically to a body of literature
which is central to many facets in our field by
-
authoring
or co-authoring six books, two of which have appeared in multiple editions
-
authoring
or co-authoring twenty-plus book chapters and articles
-
writing
or contributing to a variety of other reports, instructional manuals, and
similar publications
-
giving
presentations at regional and national conferences as well as at specific
universities and in other venues
Many times we’re known by the company we keep, and this person
certainly is in good company, having collaborated with people such as Alan
Sillars, Donald
Carbaugh, Jon
Nussbaum, Leslie Baxter, and Joyce
Hocker
Perhaps most significantly, this person actualizes our convention’s
theme of “translating scholarship into practice” for she or he has
conducted almost innumerable workshops and served as a facilitator, mediator,
and interventionist in both university and community settings.
The letters supporting his nomination describe him as a special mentor,
scholar, and teacher whose interactive style of teaching motivates others to
meet high standards. They
characterize him as creative, enthusiastic, and caring. They say he shatters
the stereotype of the ivory tower academic by always grounding scholarly
endeavors in actual experience, in–this label is for the rhetoricians among
us--praxis. They laud his
positive energy, his sensitivity, and his humor.
But, this guy also is just a tad peculiar, because in many ways he
embodies the principle of contradiction.
Trained as a technocrat enamored with stochastic models and the like,
he habitually operates on intuition; an outdoors buff, he’s been known to
take his laptop along when he goes backpacking; a crusader for world peace, he
hunts wild animals. According to
one of my sources, he dreams about thinking like and becoming one with or even
being an elk–or some such quirky thing!!!
The inscription on the plaque we’re presenting to him reads: “For
his stewardship and service, but, most particularly, for the positive energy
he brings to the translating of scholarship into practice.”
Members of the association, the recipient of the 2001 WSCA
Distinguished Service Award is Mr. Conflict himself, William W.–aka
Bill–Wilmot of the University of Montana.
