NCA to Honor UC Communication Professors at Annual Convention

Two

McMicken College of Arts and Sciences

professors, Gail Fairhurst and Cindy Berryman-Fink, will receive awards at the National Communication Association’s (

NCA

) 97th Annual Convention this November. The convention will further spotlight the

Department of Communication

with a panel discussion featuring Assistant Professor John Lynch’s latest book “What are Stem Cells? Definitions at the Intersection of Science and Politics.”

Fairhurst will receive the Distinguished Scholar Award which recognizes and rewards a lifetime of scholarly achievement in the study of communication. The NCA selects Distinguished Scholars whose work showcases the profession.

“To be recognized as a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association this year, and a Fellow of the International Communication Association last year, is a rare honor accorded to few scholars in my discipline. I so appreciate the colleagues with whom I have worked and the support of UC over the years. It’s also wonderful to be working in a field as vibrant and relevant as communication,” says Fairhurst.

Berryman-Fink will receive the Wallace A. Bacon Lifetime Teaching Award which recognizes outstanding teaching by retired NCA members. The award was designed to encourage the recognition of outstanding teaching during a lifetime.

“It is such an honor to receive the Wallace A. Bacon Lifetime Teaching Award, and I thank all the many students at UC over the years who challenged me to make my courses substantive, provocative, innovative, contemporary and interactive. Teaching is a collaborative activity in which I learned a great deal while sparking intellectual curiosity in others,” say Berryman-Fink.

The convention will also host a panel discussion, featuring Lynch’s new book “

What are Stem Cells? Definitions at the Intersection of Science and Politics

,” held on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 11 a.m.

“The panel is an open forum for me to introduce the book to an audience interested in the rhetoric and discourse of health, medicine and science, and for early readers of the book to provide their reactions and engage me in dialogue about the book and its implications for studies of biomedical technology and stem cells specifically and discourses of health, medicine and science generally,” says Lynch.

His book became available Oct. 6, as part of the University of Alabama Press’s Rhetoric, Culture and Social Critique series.

Other faculty from the

University of Cincinnati

who will be presenting at the convention include:

Omotayo Banjo

,

Brian Cordell

,

James W. Crocker-Lakness

,

Stephen Depoe

, 

Gail T. Fairhurst

,

Patricia Friel

,

Stephen Haas

,

Eric Jenkins

,

Nancy Jennings

, 

Judith S. Trent

and

Heather Zoller

. Graduate students

Keally DeWitt

,

Katherine Wilson

and

Tabitha Sallee

will also be presenting.

The NCA is the largest national organization to promote communication scholarship and education, advancing communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific and aesthetic inquiry. The NCA is comprised of researchers, educators and professionals working to understand better all forms of human communication.

The NCA’s 97th Annual Convention will be held Nov. 17-19, 2011 in New Orleans.