07/12/2017

President's Message

 

Greetings ORWAC Members, 

I trust you had a wonderful 2016-2017 academic year.  The 2017 Western States Communication Association (WSCA) Convention in Salt Lake City, UT was a great success! I’d like to extend special thanks to Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. Foss, who executed the ORWAC-sponsored pre-conference, “From Margin to Center: Feminist Inquiry in the Communication Discipline.” ORWAC also sponsored a number of paper and panel sessions during the Convention and presented top paper and Feminist Scholar of the Year awards. Please see the list of award winners in this newsletter.

One of the great highlights of the WSCA Convention was the keynote speaker, Black Lives Matter Ambassador Janaya Khan. ORWAC sponsored the keynote speaker, as well as the panel immediately following the presentation, entitled, “Centralizing Marginality Through Protest and Activism.”  The keynote presentation was heavily attended and Janaya received a standing ovation.

 

At our 2017 Business Meeting, a new graduate Student Representative was elected to serve a two-year term. Congratulations to Melissa Harris, who will be beginning her doctoral studies at Howard University in August 2017.

As a reminder, the deadline to submit your papers and panels for the 2018 WSCA Convention in Santa Clara, CA is September 1, 2017. ORWAC seeks submissions that speak to both its emphasis on research regarding women and intersectionality, gender, feminism, and the Convention theme, “Mindfulness and Communication.”

I hope you have a research-filled summer, with some rest in between!

Marnel Niles Goins

President, ORWAC