Department News

Fall 2008 Issue

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Department News

Largest Crowd Ever Attends OCMC

The Organizational Communication Mini-Conference held at Purdue in September was the largest in the 21 years of the conference.

Patrice Buzzanell, the conference planner, said 123 people registered --36 faculty and 87 students --from 29 different institutions. Participants came from California to New Jersey, and from (Fargo) North Dakota to Texas. A faculty member also joined electronically from Dubai.

"This conference is relatively unique because it was one of the first to be wholy student-centered with students doing presentations of their own research, typically their theses and dissertations," said Buzzanell. "This year we added mini-presentations by junior and senior scholars on work-life balance in academe, grants, manuscript review processes for publication, and other ideas."

In addition, this year's conference instituted lunch discussion groups.

Organizational Communication faculty Stacey Connaughton and Patrice Buzzanell

"These were informal discussions about topics such as mentoring, developing and delivering online courses in organizational communication, among others."

CLA Dean John Contreni pointed out in his opening remarks, "with over 125 people, it's not so 'mini' anymore."

Watch Professor Glenn Sparks discuss the state of Purdue sports with a reporter from The Exponent, Purdue's student newspaper.

Visitors to the Department

Michael Schiferl, Senior Vice President of Weber Shandwick Worldwide gave a talk on "The use of new media in PR" in Com 435H. Schiferl is a department alumnus and on the advisory board for Discovery Park.

Lois Witkop, Vice President of Strategic Marketing for the American Diabetes Association (ADA), gave a guest lecture in Susan Morgan's graduate course on Integrating Theory and Practice.

Hu Zhengrong, Vice President (Academic Affairs) at Communication University of China; Minsu Wu, vice dean of Foreign Studies College of CUC; and Xiaohong Wang, head of Television Department in School of Journalism and Television of CUC.

Jan van den Bulck, Professor, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Dr. Johan Leuridan Huys, Dean; Mag. Marina Cho, Head of the Department of Communication and Professor Cesar Mauricio, Digital Journalism Area, from Universidad de San Martin de Porres in Lima Peru.

Department programs highly ranked

The department's Health, Interpersonal and Organizational Communication programs rank in the Top 10 based on faculty's publications in the 50 journals related to the field.

Com Vista, a guide to programs of study in communication-related departments, ranked communication programs in 99 areas based on faculty research productivity. This is determined by the number of publications by each department's current faculty members, said Howard Sypher, professor and head of the Department of Communication. The journals are indexed in the Com Abstract database.

Purdue's Health Communication program is ranked No. 2, and Interpersonal and Organizational Communication are ranked fourth. The Health Communication program, which was formed in 2002, looks at how interactions among patients, health-care providers and the medical industry influence the quality of health care. Interpersonal communication is the study of conversations and relationships, such as friendships, romance, families and work relationships. Organizational communication looks at communication behaviors in the workplace, political groups and other professional organizations.

Department Professor Patrice Buzzanell stops for a henna tattoo while attending the International Conference on Soft Skills Development Strategies at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India.