2020 “Harboring Innovation” Convention Update from Your First Vice President
I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! I’ve enjoyed following a lot of you on social media and have learned that some are out of the country, some are at the beach with loved ones, some are embarking on new jobs and professional opportunities, and many are just enjoying the peace, quiet, and productivity that summer allows. Your ECA 2020 team has been hard at work planning a fun, stimulating, and innovative convention! The entire Executive Council and the Executive Board have been incredibly supportive of my desire to create a memorable and enriching experience for all who participate in the 2020 convention.
If you have not already marked your calendar, please be sure that April 1-5, 2020 are reserved for “Harboring Innovation” – the 111th annual meeting of the Eastern Communication Association at the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor.
In keeping with my theme of “Harboring Innovation,” ECA 2020 will be featuring some new and exciting opportunities to learn, connect, and stimulate your best work. My secondary theme could be “listening” – because I have been doing a lot of listening and hope to deliver the social and professional development experiences you would like from your ECA. Some confirmed highlights:
- Two half-day workshops offered by Dr. Andrew F. Hayes and colleagues: “Integrating Mediation and Moderation Analysis: Fundamentals using PROCESS” and “Mediation Analysis with Distinguishable Dyadic Data.” Hayes, Professor of Psychology and Professor of Communication at The Ohio State University, is known for his innovations in the assessment of mediation and moderation, and for developing the PROCESS modeling macro for SPSS and SAS. These hands-on workshops will be a fantastic opportunity for ECA members to learn these techniques alongside like-minded communication colleagues without expensive travel to Dr. Hayes’s regular workshops, and to obtain a copy of his book Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis.
ECA is pleased to offer very special nominal pricing to secure your seat(s) for these events -- $50 per workshop if you already have the book, or $75 if you do not. Even if you have already attended a Hayes workshop, these events will give you an opportunity to learn up close and personal from this outstanding methodologist, statistician, scholar, and teacher. My deepest thanks on behalf of the association go to Dr. Alan Goodboy, Director of Innovations in Research and Publishing, for his efforts to bring Dr. Hayes to ECA. More information and pre-registration (to block out your time so you aren’t double-booked) are coming soon!
- A half-day workshop on “Best Practices for Qualitative Communication Research” with Dr. Heather Stuckey, Associate Professor of Medicine, Humanities, and Public Health Sciences at the Penn State University Hershey College of Medicine.
Are you interested in doing qualitative research, or integrating more qualitative methods into your work for a mixed methods approach? Are you already doing qualitative work, but looking for state of the art techniques for extracting richer and more valuable insights from your participants? Are you skeptical about the rigors and validity of qualitative studies with small samples? Then this workshop is for you.
Dr. Stuckey’s expertise is in qualitative research and mixed methods, and her primary focus is on interventions to improve diabetes management and psychosocial outcomes. She was lead qualitative investigator for the DAWN2 (Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs) study to identify psychosocial needs of people with diabetes, health care providers and family members around the world. She currently holds an NIDDK DP3 grant to analyze patient blog use and provider perceptions to identify barriers and facilitators to self-management. Dr. Stuckey’s dyamic, interactive, and focused teaching style will help you identify ways to innovate with your qualitative research, using best practices that anyone collecting this type of data need to know and use. Date, time, and registration information coming soon.
- 2020 will feature the Connect Conference, sponsored by the Community College Interest Group. Open and relevant to ALL ECA attendees, this half-day conference will be held Thursday, April 2nd at Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel. The featured presenter is Dr. Isa N. Engleberg, Prince George’s Community College. Dr. Engleberg is Past President of the National Communication Association and coauthor of several communication textbooks, including THINK Public Speaking. This interactive conference will focus on assessing public speaking assignments and will offer valuable opportunities to connect with colleagues from near and far.
Thanks to our CC team, led by Jessica Papajcik, for their hard work planning a great Connect Conference. If the Connect Conference happens to be your first time as an ECA attendee, you will receive a FREE one-year ECA membership. You guessed it -- more details coming soon.
- The James C. McCroskey and Virginia P. Richmond Undergraduate Scholars Conference awards ceremony will shift from a luncheon to a special Saturday evening celebration dinner, preceded by the graduate program fair. And for the first time, we will feature a speaker at this event, Dr. Dannagal Young of the University of Delaware, to further inspire and motivate our youngest scholars to continue their journeys within our field. Thanks to my USC directors, Drs. Stephanie Tikkanen and LeeAnn Sangalang for inviting Dr. Young and thinking of ways to make ECA’s USC innovative!
- By popular demand, the keynote and awards will be streamlined and take on a more engaging, fun persona in 2020! Look forward to a convention-wide luncheon on Saturday, similar to the ones enjoyed at WSCA and CSCA.
There will be even more to come! In the meantime, I hope you are working on your submissions and preparing for key deadlines:
- October 15 for all regular interest group submissions
- December 13 for James C. McCroskey and Virginia P. Richmond Undergraduate Scholars Conference and Graduate Poster submissions
Finally, I hope that some of the opportunities at this year’s ECA convention might prompt you to invite a friend who is not a regular ECA-goer. We always welcome new faces, new scholarship, and new ideas. As we all know, people rarely come to our beloved ECA just once.
Enjoy your remaining summer days,
Jennifer Waldeck, Chapman University, waldeck@chapman.edu
First Vice President & 2020 Convention Planner
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