Padgett, Saltz Undertaking Projects during Fall Semester

Faculty members George Padgett and Staci Saltz will be absent from the halls of the School of Communications during the fall semester. Padgett will be on sabbatical, and Saltz will be teaching in Costa Rica.

Padgett will be undertaking a number of projects while on sabbatical. First, he will be releasing a book called “Diversity A-Z,” a dictionary and style book for journalism students, educators and media professionals. It will include a brief dictionary of common Hispanic translations for the non-Spanish speaker covering the emerging Hispanic/Latino community, as well. The book will be published by Marion Street Press Inc., in Chicago. Padgett says he hopes to have it out by the start of the UNITY conference in Chicago next summer.

Second, Padgett is working on a panel presentation proposal on games and activities to use in teaching diversity to students and professionals. He says he hopes this, too, will be ready for the UNITY conference.

Padgett also says he has received interest from a couple of publishers regarding a potential travel book titled, “100 Extraordinary Coffee Shops in 100 Extraordinary Locations.” He says he’ll continue to work on finding a publisher.

Finally, he will be attending a writing workshop/conference in New Mexico in November, where he has both a novel and a short story entered into a competition.

Saltz is acting as Elon’s faculty in residence in Costa Rica, where she will be teaching a GST Seminar called Media and Culture. The class will encompass a lot of things but will focus a great deal of time on the different aspects of the culture of Costa Rica, such as education, tradition, politics, economy, community and religion. Throughout the semester the students will not only be studying through readings and research, but they will also be spending a great deal of time learning first-hand about Costa Rican culture, which will place great time demands on the handful of class participants.

The students will also study the media in Costa Rica. In class, they will discuss how media affect culture and how culture affects media.  Saltz will also be assisting with weekend excursions to rainforests, volcanoes and other locations throughout Costa Rica.  We will be taking a 4-day excursion to Nicaragua, as well.