Eleven faculty members and a 2010 graduate of the School of Communications participated in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) national conference in Denver from Aug. 3-7.
In addition, the School of Communications received AEJMC’s national Equity & Diversity Award, which will be formally presented on Elon’s campus in September by AEJMC President Jan Slater of the University of Illinois.
As a result of the national award, Elon was invited to present a session at the Denver conference on gender equity and racial diversity. The session was led by Dean Paul Parsons and associate professors Brooke Barnett and Frances Ward-Johnson.
Ward-Johnson also served as a panelist for a session on minority media ownership, moderated a session on ethnic and mainstream media, and received a Distinguished Service Award from the Minorities and Communications Division.
Associate professor Byung Lee received the national third-place award in “Best of Web” for individual innovation for his automatic ActionScript production.
Assistant professor Dan Haygood presented research papers on magazine coverage of an historical event and on advertising agency business accounts.
New associate professor Amanda Sturgill, formerly at Baylor University, presented research papers on establishing authority in podcasting and religious perceptions of politics and science, and she moderated a session concerning the online domain.
Assistant professors Naeemah Clark and Amanda Gallagher presented a research paper on race and identity in online messages, and Gallagher presented a second research paper on a cohort analysis of career goals.
Associate professor Anthony Hatcher was a panelist on entertainment television theologies.
Assistant professor Sang Nam was the designated discussant in a visual culture session, and associate professor Glenn Scott moderated the University of North Carolina Ph.D. alumni organization.
2010 graduate Alexa Milan presented a research paper on the portrayal of journalism in Vietnam-era cinema, which appeared in the first issue of the Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications.
Also, Dean Parsons was installed during the Denver conference as 2010-11 president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC), the leadership organization that partners with AEJMC. In that capacity, Parsons serves on the AEJMC Board of Directors.