September 2017 College News

Lindsay Timmerman attended the National Communication Association Mid-Career Scholar¹s Writing Retreat, held at Chapman University. Lindsay recently received the “Distinguished Article Award,” for the Family Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Lindsay and co-authors published “Contradictions and praxis conceptualized by wartime deployment: Wives’ perspectives revealed through relational dialectics,” in Communication Monographs . ALUMNI ACCOLADES Vanessa Salazar presented a manuscript derived from her thesis at the International Communication Association. The paper won the Top Interactive Display Award in the Organizational Communication Division. WELCOMING NEW FACULTY C. Erik Timmerman joins the Communication Studies faculty as Department Chair and Professor. Erik is an alumnus of our M.A. program and received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2000, he was a faculty member of the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. His teaching focuses upon organizational communication, communication technology and customer service--utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods. Erik’s current research projects apply communication theory and research to understand customer service as communication-based exchange and the ways that communication technologies impact students’ learning and perceptions in the traditional and online college classes. His research has been published in Communication Monographs , Communication Education , Communication Quarterly , Management Communication Quarterly , Journal of Media Psychology , Journal on Excellence in College Teaching , Journal of Online Teaching and Learning , as well as an edited volume, chapters in books, and encyclopedia entries. Lindsay Timmerman joins the Communication Studies faculty as an Associate Professor. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Lindsay teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Interpersonal Communication, Marital & Family Communication, Communication & Emotion, and the Dark Side of Close Relationships. Her research centers around close relationships, specifically focusing on stigmatized disclosure, long-distance relationships (including military marriage), family secrets, and under- studied close relationships. Lindsay’s research appears in Communication Monographs , Communication Research Reports , Southern Communication Journal , Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , Family Relations , Communication Studies , and various edited books. Elizabeth K. Eger joins the Communication Studies faculty as an Assistant Professor. She is completing her Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Boulder. Elizabeth will teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Organizational Communication, Qualitative Methods, Gender and Communication, and Work, Identity, and Difference. Her current research explores difference- based organizing, including long-term ethnographies of a transgender outreach center. Elizabeth has worked as a researcher for the National Center of Women and Information Technology to advance the meaningful participation of women and underrepresented people in IT careers and education. Her research appears in Management Communication Quarterly , Journal of Applied Communication Research, Anthropology & Education Quarterly , and the third edition of The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Communication . 6 | September | College News C3 The Center for Communication, Collaboration & Creativit y (C3) C3 REP WORKSHOP C3 is offering a REP proposal workshop tailored specifically for College of Fine Arts and Communication faculty. The workshop will take place in Sabinal Hall 102 on Oct. 3 from Noon-1pm. REP guidelines, budgets, and the overall application process will be discussed. Former REP reviewers and awardees will also provide tips and comments. The REP deadline is Oct. 25 at 5pm. Learn more or sign up for this workshop here. COSEARCH 2017 CoSearch 2017 was a huge success! This year’s 3rd annual CoSearch event was truly the most interdisciplinary to date with almost every college and school represented among the 32 participants. Out of these participants, seven were College of Fine Arts and Communication faculty from four of its five units. Each participant had an opportunity to pitch one idea for a research or creative project that addressed a real-world issue. Then participants voted on their favorite ideas and split up into teams to develop those ideas in a creative process culminating in a final presentation to a panel of judges. This year, FACES of Texas State, a program to support and empower college students who lived in foster care, was voted the top team. NEW AWARD Researchers in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication have been awarded $636,280 by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (THHSC) for a statewide media campaign aimed at improving enrollment in Medicare in Texas. PI: Kelly Kaufhold , Co-PI Judy Oskam , Michael Devlin , Clay Craig , Dan Seed , Jessica James , Kym Fox , Jenny Buschhorn , Prisca Ngondo , Dale Blasingame and C3: Lisa Westerbeck . College of Fine Arts and Communication | 7 Team name: FACES of TXST Project name: The Bridge Project Purpose: Bridging the invisible education gap from high school to college for foster care youth by identifying protective factors that foster college-ready identities. Using a strategic communication framework (i.e., campaign), researchers will investigate the decision-making process foster care youth go through when thinking about attending college, to identify barriers to attendance and protective factors that positively influence this decision. Interdisciplinary Team Includes: Christine Norton (School of Social Work), Eleanor Close (Department of Physics), Lindsay Timmerman (Department of Communication Studies), Luz Murillo (Department of Education), Megan Newhouse- Bailey (Department of Health and Human Performance), and Shawna White (School of Journalism and Mass Communication). COSEARCH WINNING TEAM