SC&I faculty, students, and alumni are headed to Baltimore next week to present at this year’s National Communication Association convention, being held at the Baltimore Convention Center and the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel, from Thursday, Nov. 14 through Monday, Nov. 17, 2019.

This year, 34 people representing SC&I will participate in over 30 NCA presentations, panels, meetings, and/or the association’s legislative assembly. 

Among the presenters will be SC&I’s Assistant Professor of Communication Jiawei Sophia Fu. As the 2019 recipient of the Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, Fu will be honored at the conference on November 16 for her dissertation “Where Does Innovation Come From?: Exploring the Dynamic Processes of Organizing and Managing Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation.”

Assistant Professor Jeffrey Lane has received the Honorable Mention award from the Human Communication and Technology Division of NCA, for their book of the year honors, for his book "The Digital Street." The award will be announced at the Human Communication and Technology Division business meeting at 8 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 15.

SC&I will host a reception at the NCA Convention at the Pratt Street Ale House in Baltimore from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15.

This year’s convention theme is “Communication for Survival.” According to the NCA website, the annual conference “is the single largest gathering of communication teachers, researchers, administrators, students, and professionals.”

“The Annual Convention serves as an incredibly important space for communing, connecting, educating, inspiring, energizing, and caring. It allows us to share our work, get feedback on it and our ideas, gain and give mentorship, build community, learn how to be the leaders we want to be, and so much more,” the NCA wrote on their website.

NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching, according to the NCA website. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among our faculties, within our membership, in the workplace, and in the classroom; NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion.

In post-NCA news, Ralph Gigliotti won two awards at the yearly conference.  The first was in the Training and Development Division; Gigliotti won the 2019 Rising Star Award.  In that same category, he also won the Top Panel Award.  The award-winning panel was titled: Surviving Scrutiny: Incorporating Research & Practice into T&D Programs.