The big news of the summer is that two of our professors - Kim Smith and Daniela Dimitrova - won College awards for teaching and research. We’ll have a feature story on that by Erin O’Gara in the forthcoming Monthly Memo.
Kim Smith joins Barbara Mack and Lulu Rodriguez who also have won Master Teacher honors. Barbara won the award in the first year it was offered, 2000. Lulu won it in 2004.
To read about the Master Teacher and Early Research Awards, visit these URLs:
Kim and Daniela will be honored on at the LAS Convocation on Wednesday, September 5, at 4 p.m., in the Music Hall Auditorium.
Good News Concerning:
Eric Abbott continues to work for both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank on their land reform projects in Tajikistan. He also completed a draft report based upon analysis of survey data and qualitative interviews that will be published by the World Bank this fall, and he is now helping to prepare a workshop for project staff planned for late September.
Contact: Eric Abbott, Professor, Director of Graduate Studies eabbott@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/abbott.shtml
Tom Beell recently helped judge more than 30 Iowa entries in this year's 48 Hour Film Project. The national program encourages aspiring film and television producers. The production teams had just 48 hours to make a 5 to 7 minute movie.
Tom has been appointed to head the AARP's 50th anniversary celebration in Iowa next year. Tom has been a member of the association's Iowa executive council for the past six years.
Contact: Thomas Beell, Professor tbeell@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/beell.shtml
Jeff Blevins has two publications, three conference papers, and a few personal items to report:
Conference papers include:
On a personal note, he writes, "This summer I accepted an invitation to join the American Legion. Chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1919, membership is strictly limited to armed services veterans who served during a time of war (my eligibility period was during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. This year I will also serve as a Den Leader for Cub Scout Pack 196 in Ames."
Contact: Jeff Blevins, Assistant Professor blevins@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/blevins.shtml
Michael Bugeja reports the following:
Contact: Michael Bugeja, Director bugeja@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.interpersonal-divide.org
David Bulla reports these contributions:
Contact: David W. Bulla, Assistant Professor dbulla@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.geocities.com/d_bulla/David_Bulla/main.html
Dennis Chamberlin (dennisch@iastate.edu) was named a Fellow by the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities and was able to devote a portion of his summer to working on the next chapter of his screen technology images. The fellowship was awarded for a proposal entitled Soma which focuses on portable technology devices that have become part of our daily lives.
Dennis also used a Site Visit grant from the Study Abroad office to spend two weeks in Poland setting up Poland Through a Lens, a multimedia class for next summer in the country where he worked as a journalist for fifteen years. This four-week class will expose students to a wide range of social and economic situations that will provide opportunities to create stories for a Web site that the class will create. The mayor’s office in Sopot, Poland, has expressed interest in sponsoring an accompanying exhibition of the photos that students will produce during their visit in 2008.
During his stay in Poland Dennis was featured on a television arts and culture program as well as two extended radio interviews, and articles in Gazeta Wyborcza and Dziennik Baltycki. He writes: "This media attention followed a two-hour presentation, made under the adrenalin rush that results from 56 hours without sleep, where over 100 people were in attendance and only one person appeared to nod off. (Much better odds than a large lecture class here on campus!)"
In early August Dennis received an invitation to participate in the prestigious Noorderlicht 14th International Photo Festival Group show curated by Wim Melis in Groningen, The Netherlands. This year the biennial show is organized around the theme Act of Faith.
The cover of the most recent issue of Visual Communication Quarterly features an image from his Screen Culture and includes a selection of photos in the portfolio section.
Contact: Dennis Chamberlin, Assistant Professor dennisch@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/chamberlin.shtml
Daniela Dimitrova won the 2007 LAS Early Achievement in Research/ Creative Activity Award for which she will be recognized at the fall LAS convocation ceremony. Daniela was asked to serve as an article reviewer for Howard Journal of Communications. Daniela also reports two publications in refereed journals:
She also presented this paper at the annual AEJMC convention:
Bugeja, M., Dimitrova, D., & Hong, H. H. Online citations in history journals: Current practice and views from journal editors. History Division.
Officers of the History Division believe the issue of footnotes in their discipline is critical and plan to host a panel about it next year.
Contact: Daniela Dimitrova, Assistant Professor danielad@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty-sites/danielad/
Joel Geske has a poster accepted at Society for Psychophysiological Research "A Measurement Of Eeg Response Differences Between Media Used For Stimuli Presentation." He will be attending the conference in Savannah, GA from October 18-21. This international conference crosses many disciplines including medicine, clinical psychology, neurology, communication and many others.
Contact: Joel Geske, Associate Professor geske@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/geske.shtml
Lindsay Gilbert writes: "We received final graduation DARS degree audits yesterday, and after completing the calculations, I determined 54 out of 56 (96%) of fall 2007 graduates had no major problems that would prevent them from graduating this fall. This is a testament to the preliminary graduation checks and efforts from the faculty advisers. Thank you for all of your efforts!"
Contact: Lindsay Gilbert, Academic Adviser lsg@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/gilbert.shtml
In research, Jay Newell reports that "Revisiting Schramm's Radiotown: Media displacement and saturation" was the lead article in the June issue of the Journal of Radio Studies. He also presented at the AEJMC a paper on the characteristics of people who are exposed to mass media for 100% of the day, "Continuous Media Consumption: Evidence from the Middletown II Studies." Additionally, his chapter on "Advertising Saturation" was accepted for publication in the next edition of the book "Issues in Advertising."
In teaching, Jay co-wrote an article on using desktop-to-classroom videoconferencing for the American Academy of Advertising Newsletter. He also was selected as one of the 15 people at ISU to participate in a year-long Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning program that focuses on improving educational outcomes in large classes.
In service, Jay oversaw the summer internships of students working in product placement in Burbank, as well as ad agencies, newspapers, radio stations and billboard companies in Iowa. "I joined the rest of the Greenlee School in reviewing papers for the AEJMC," he notes, "and was quoted on product placement in a front page story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution."
Contact: Jay Newell, Assistant Professor newelljj@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/newell.shtml
Marcia Prior-Miller served as an invited in-class resource professor with Dr. Ann Smiley-Oyen, associate professor of health and human performance, for Smiley-Oyen's Scientific Writing Seminar (HHP 590), May 18 through August 3.
Contact: Marcia Prior-Miller, Associate Professor mpm@iastate.edu
Web: http://mpm.jlmc.iastate.edu/
Over the summer Dave Saldana appeared on WOI's "Talk of Iowa" to discuss his research on The Daily Show as a legitimate source of news and what real journalists can learn from it; WOI's "The Exchange" to talk about "citizen journalists" and the ethics of blogging; KPFA's "Against the Grain" to talk about post-WTO police response to demonstrators and use of less-lethal weapons in crowd control circumstances, "vis-a-vis my getting shot by the LAPD in 2000," and lawsuits against such practices." He adds: "I have also been engaged as a media critic for Iowa Public Radio's 'Morning Edition,' with my commentaries repeated throughout the day."
Contact: Dave Saldana, Adjunct Assistant Professor dsaldana@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/saldana.shtml
Sela Sar reports these AEJMC contributions:
Contact: Sela Saar, Assistant Professor selasar@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/sar.shtml
In May Erin Wilgenbusch took on a new consulting client. She writes, "I am helping them use public relations to build their client base and enhance employee communication. They are based out of Minneapolis and provide lean manufacturing consulting services."
In July, Shelley Rouse and Erin team-taught a broadcast news class to talented and gifted high school students through the university's OPPTAG program. She thanks Mark Witherspoon and David Bulla for guest-speaking and to the staff of the Daily for allowing Erin and Shelley to sit in on a few of their budget meetings.
Erin also began working with the Ames area PR/Marketing peer group to develop a professional-development seminar. "They are going to invite one of our students to be on the planning committee and are hoping to make the event very student-friendly," she writes.
Erin also met with Elaine Edwards in Extension Communications. "They have a wonderful paid internship program," Erin notes, "and we talked about a number of ways our p.r. classes could work on projects with their staff -- including special events like the Farm Progress Show."
Contact: Erin Wilgenbusch, Lecturer eew@iastate.edu
Web: http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/faculty/wilgenbusch.shtml
2007-08-31