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Associate Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department Stefne Lenzmeier Broz teaches class. |
The honor comes less than a decade after student demand led to the creation of a new major in communication. Associate Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department Stefne Lenzmeier Broz, Professor of Communication Catherine Egley Waggoner and Assistant Professor of Communication Sheryl Cunningham accepted the award at the organization's convention in San Francisco, Nov. 14-17. The Rex Mix Program of Excellence Award is presented annually by the Undergraduate College and University Section of the NCA to recognize programs that have "definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them."
"This is an auspicious distinction, one that comes from our peers across the country recognizing the quality program we have built on this campus," said Matthew J. Smith, associate professor of communication and the department's chair during the 2009-10 school year. "What's even more meaningful is that the process of applying for this recognition was undertaken as a collaboration between faculty and students in the Communication Leaders Program."
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Click here to read what students and alums are saying about Wittenberg's Department of Communication
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The department has grown quickly, incorporating "collegial faculty whose interests and capabilities overlap just enough so as to have a cohesive program, but also sufficient differences in order to be able to represent the diversity of our discipline and offer students a wide ranges of choices," Broz said. "I feel those characteristics are some of our greatest strengths, and they have enabled us to achieve the innovations for which we are being honored."
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Associate Professor of Communication Matthew J. Smith teaches class. |
A perfect example of that intimate interaction between faculty and students is the Communication Leaders Program, a cross-campus collaboration between the Department of Communication and WittPath Career Services introduced in 2006 to offer 8-12 students per year a competitive educational opportunity.
Smith created the Communication Leaders program with Director of WittPath Career Services Karen Reynolds, who now directs the program with Assistant Professor of Communication Kathleen Warber. The goal was to give students opportunities to learn about real-world organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to small non-profit agencies, while gaining hands-on learning experiences.
The program involves trips to various organizations and visits from business leaders, with a focus on leadership qualities and styles as the students visit organizations and explore career opportunities in communication fields. The 10 students involved in the Communication Leaders Program during the 2009-10 school year helped to research and prepare the application. Maryam Rezayat, class of 2010, primarily authored the application, with editorial and design support from Smith and Warber.
Among the documents that faculty members and students included in the application were letters of support, a feature story on the Communication Leaders program that ran in a previous issue of Wittenberg Magazine titled "Wittenberg Alumni Share Their Stories of Success," Fall 2010 Course Descriptions and a welcome folder.
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Catherine Egley Waggoner, Stefne Lenzmeier Broz and Sheryl Cunningham receive the 2010 Rex Mix Program of Excellence Award from Chair Barbara Ruth Burke at the NCA Convention. |
Timely courses have been developed to address societal trends, including Health Communication and Family Communication by faculty members who are rapidly becoming recognized as leaders in their field. Waggoner's 2008 book Making Camp: Rhetorics of Transgression in U.S. Popular Culture won a national award, Broz is editor of the Ohio Communication and Smith is past president of the Ohio Communication Association.
"I feel honored to be chair of a department that since its inception has been committed to creativity, rigor and continual self-reflection and refinement," Broz said. "Our students' tremendous enthusiasm for our program - one of the largest on our campus - is a testament to these attributes."
The NCA annually recognizes communication departments and disciplines in the United States that are providing quality, innovative, theoretical and practical programs using superior instruction, pioneering research and practical applications.
Written By: Ryan Maurer
Photos By: Erin Pence
