Early Fall 1998, Vol. 6, No. 3

Perspectives

a quarterly newsletter published by the Department of Communication Studies and V.O.I.C.E.
San José State University, Early Fall 1998, Vol. 6, No. 3
commstud@email.sjsu.edu www.sjsu.edu/depts/commstudies

SCU and SJSU Sponsor Annual Lecture Series

flag of Mexico Our department and Santa Clara U's Communication Department will inaugurate a joint annual lecture series Oct. 8 on the SJSU campus. Dr. Jorge Gonzalez, Director of the Cultural Program at the U of Colima, Mexico, and an internationally-renown authority on communication and culture, will be the inaugural speaker. His work on "cultural fronts" has won him much attention throughout North America, South America, and Europe. He will visit classes at both SJSU and SCU during the first week of October, then deliver his formal address to faculty and students from both campuses at the Student Union on Oct. 8.

This important event symbolizes the beginning of an era of closer cooperation between faculty and students in communication studies at SJSU and SCU. Faculty, staff, and students are heartily encouraged to attend the event Oct. 8.

Email or call (408-924-5360) the department for further details.

DEPARTMENT WELCOMES NEW FACULTY

Two faculty members joined us this fall. Rona Halualani is revamping our language courses and Andy Wood is developing a new program in computer-mediated communication (CMC).

earth Prof. Halualani earned her Ph.D. in intercultural communication/cultural studies at Arizona State U. Her main research interests include exploring the speaking practices of Pacific Islander (e.g., Hawaiian, Samoan, Tongan) and Asian communities (Vietnamese, Filipino), especially in relation to historical and economic conditions and social structures (namely, governance and regulation, tourism and commerce). For the past five years, she has conducted fieldwork with Hawaiian communities in the U.S., examining communication practices, blood quantum policies, and cultural politics. In addition, Prof. Halualani studies the migrations of Japanese to such countries as Peru, Argentina, and Brazil and the restructuring of cultural identity and language practices. After painstaking genealogical research and oral history translation, she linked her own Japanese family line to Brazil. This semester, Prof. Halualani is teaching intercultural communication; verbal reasoning; introduction to communication studies; and language, meaning, and culture. Beyond work, she enjoys outdoor activities such sea kayaking, hiking, and boogie boarding.

computer cartoon Prof. Wood completed his doctoral and master's work at Ohio U in the School of Interpersonal Communication. He also earned a graduate certificate in OU's Women's Studies program. His dissertation, "Spaghetti Dinners and Fireflies in a Jar": Shaping Paradoxical Places and Spaces in Disney's Celebration, critiques a prominent example of new urbanist architecture in central Florida. He has co-authored a textbook, Communication and Campaigns, published a variety of articles, and presented at numerous regional and national conferences. His primary interest lies in the study of computer mediated communication, specifically at the intersection of technology, culture, and power. He studies CMC to develop emancipatory ways of shaping the apparently formless abstraction called "cyberspace." This semester, Prof. Wood is assisting the Forensics team and teaching nonverbal communication; persuasion; and communication, self and society. Joining him from Ohio are Jenny and Vienna, his wife and daughter.

Salter Named Outstanding Professor by the

Prof. Kenneth Salter, lecturer in Communication Studies, was chosen by the 1998 graduates to receive the department's Outstanding Professor Award. Prof. Salter earned his law degree from UC, Berkeley, in 1967. He teaches courses and conducts research in argumentation, and legal communication, and ethics. Prof. Salter is the director of the department's pre-law program. Below is an edited version of his commencement address presented May 21, 1998.

"Remarks on Being Honored as Outstanding Professor"

Chairman Jaehne, Parents and Loved Ones, My Distinguished Colleagues and my Students,

I am deeply and doubly honored by the graduating class's selection of me as this year's Outstanding Professor. Profoundly honored because there is no higher vote of confidence or mark of respect that our majors could give to me than to select me to speak to this proud assembly tonight. Doubly honored because in the five years our graduating class has voted, I am the first professor to be so honored twice, first by the class of 1996 and now by the class of 1998.

As you honor me, I want to honor you, my students and your proud parents, family, significant others and friends. My remarks concern you because this is your night to celebrate an important right of passage and it is my duty to describe the path that lies ahead into the 21st Century.

THE COMMUNICATION STUDIES SCHOLAR

You have benefited from a major that has allowed each of you to develop a unique vocational focus, learn and perfect the kind of communication skills that make you dynamic and sought after employees in corporate advertising, marketing, training and personnel departments, and prepare you for graduate studies to become professional teachers, lawyers, social science researchers and ministers. These are just some of the exciting vocations for which you have prepared yourselves.

Most importantly, you have the breadth of skills and knowledge to do whatever you decide to do in the future. You have received one of the best educations possible in the wonderful tradition of a liberal education. You are uniquely positioned to become the next generation's leaders.

With the current economic boom, your immediate success is assured. I urge you to weigh your opportunities carefully. While money and job status are highly tempting motivators to those of you who have had to work your way through college as I did, pursuit of money and job prestige alone is a hollow and unsatisfying goal unless you are both working at a job that gives you personal satisfaction and allows for continued growth and learning.

RESPONSIBILITY

The symbolic degree you will receive tonight comes with a price tag. By that I don't mean just what it's cost you and your family in money and sacrifices. It's a two-way ticket. While it guarantees your entry into the vocation you've prepared for, at the same time it confers on you the responsibility to continue your education and to keep upgrading your skills and knowledge. Our world is changing rapidly due to technology. You've got to keep up with the changes if you want to be a competent professional, manager, or business person. You also have a responsibility to give back of what you've received.

DIVERSITY

We are not your typical ivory tower academicians who have their heads stuffed with theory, lecture it to their students, have their students regurgitate it on an exam, then forget it. You have been taught theory, but as importantly, how to apply and use that theory in the real world. Because our small department is composed of many professors like myself, who have lived abroad, speak several languages, worked as consultants or professionals in the corporate world, and taught interdisciplinary subjects, your education has been enriched by our knowledge built on diversity.

I find it interesting that while the academic world and the voters fight and squabble over the role of Affirmative Action and the necessity for diversity in state admissions to universities and hiring of faculty, the corporate world is not divided at all. Why? It's simple. Having a diverse working force is good for business. Corporations with products to sell on the increasingly competitive international marketplace and to expanding minority communities know it makes sense to have employees on their management, marketing and sales staffs who know those markets and whom those consumers can identify with and trust to know their needs.

If a company doesn't invest in a diverse work force, it won't penetrate those increasingly profitable new and expanding markets. The same is true for a university department for both its students and professors. That is a major reason why your education in our culturally diverse department is in step with the needs of business as we head into the 21st Century.

CONCLUSION

I want to suggest as I bring my remarks to a close, that there is a duty not only for self-growth, but to sharing with others less fortunate than you the skills, knowledge and understanding we have helped you acquire.

I came from an activist generation. We believed we could change our society for the better and secure true equality of opportunity for all members of society. We fought against discrimination wherever it raised its ugly head. We cared about people and voted for social programs. We fought to have our nation's resources directed to support education and health and not to building bombs and bomb shelters.

So, now it's your turn to carry the torch. It's your turn to become Big Brother or Sister to an at-risk youth, to help out at your kids' school or lead the kids on a field trip to a nature reserve or to the Lawrence Hall of Science, to sponsor a troop of Boy or Girl Scouts, to supervise a student intern at work, to become a soccer mom or dad, to tutor English, to volunteer at a woman's shelter or answer a hot line for run-away teens, or get involved with youths in your church or the local Boys Club.

Get involved as parents and concerned citizens to teach young people to turn away from violence and drugs and life in the fast, but short-lived lane. Involve yourself in your community and mentor others. Start with the kids. They are our future for better or worse. Make it for the better by helping turn someone's life around as I have tried to do for you. The future is up to you. It's your time to receive your degree and lead us into the 21st Century. I salute you on this wonderful night we can be together to share in the joy of your accomplishments with your family and loved ones. Don't let the fervor and passion for knowledge ever burn out. God bless you on all your exciting endeavors. Thank You.

COMM PRE-LEGAL NEWS

ALUMNUS UPDATE

The hunt for seats in Bay Area law schools was successful for Uduak Oduok (B.A., 1997) who will attend Hastings College of the Law.

MOOT COURT

The Spring '98 Moot Court Competition on whether Creation Science can be taught in public schools was held on May 12. Chris Shupp argued for the State opposing the policy; Deborah Simmons and Ashkan Beiklou, argued for the policy. The judges were lawyers, Balbir Bhogal and Mozhagan Novbakhtian, who both were undergraduates in our department and attended Hastings College of the Law.

The Fall '98 Moot Court problem involves whether the state can require welfare recipients and abusive mothers to be implanted with the Norplant contraceptive device as a condition of probation. Farimah Farahani and Debbie Horn will argue the case pro and con in late Fall. Students may still sign up to research this exciting legal issue and argue their case before a law judge in December. See Prof. Ken Salter during his office hours 9:30-10:30 or 1:30-3:00 TR in 205 HGH or call him at 924-5375.

SPRING COLLOQUIUM ON EARLY LEGAL EDUCATION

Ken Salter and Hanns Hohmann presented contrasting views of early legal education in a Comm Dept Colloquium on March 4, 1998. Prof. Salter addressed the development of legal education in the English common law system and Inns of Court while Prof. Hohmann traced legal education through the Middle Ages in Europe. Over 20 students and faculty attended.

WSCA COMMUNICATION AND THE LAW PROGRAM

Prof. Ken Salter is Chair of the Communication and Law Interest Group for WSCA's 1999 Convention in Vancouver. The interest group is offering a program featuring a Debut Papers Program to encourage graduate students and young, unpublished scholars.

NEWS AND NOTES

International Communication

James Lull was recently appointed Adjunct Research Professor, Cultural Program, U Center for Social Research, U of Colima, Colima, Mexico.

Lela Noble, Dean of the College of Social Science, SJSU, and Cecilia Alegría, Dean of the College of Communication Sciences and Technologies of San Iganacio de Loyola U (Lima, Peru) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on July 27. By signing this agreement, both programs have agreed to examine all possibilities for joint endeavors enhancing educational and research cooperation for our students, staff, and faculty at our respective establishments. James Lull and Federico Varona, witnessed the signing of this agreement as well as Robert Carolin, Associate Director of Study Abroad.

Federico Varona consulted for the Johns Hopkins U/Center for Comm. Programs (JHU/CCP) in Nicaragua from July 10 to August 10, 1998. He conducted an internal communication assessment for 5 PROFAMILIA clinics. The objectives were: a) conduct an analysis of the management practices of the PROFAMILIA clinic staff; b) identify the communication barriers in relation to internal communication; c) identify the effects the barriers are having or not having on the provision of quality services; d) identify the barriers in internal communication between the clinic management and the health promoter network. Prof. Varona completed 10 days of field work to: a) refine the communication audit instruments; b) train PROFAMILIA personnel in the use of the instruments; c) conduct the collection of data in partnership with PROFAMILIA; d) provide immediate feedback on the results of the communication assessment to clinic directors; and e) prepare a preliminary report on the findings with a short-term action plan for interventions to address the preliminary findings. He analyzed collected data and submitted a report on the findings of the communication assessments and recommendations on possible interventions.

FORENSICS

The forensics team welcomes three new coaches. Andy Wood is coaching individual events. He has 4 years of coaching experience from Ohio U and 4 years of forensics competition for St. Petersburg Junior College and Berry College. In his last year as an individual events competitor, he earned 6 national championships, including top speaker (pentathlon) at the National Forensics Assn.'s national tournament and persuasive speaking champion at the Interstate Oratorical Assn.'s national tournament.

Mark Porrovecchio, a former assistant with Oregon State U, has a rich background in parliamentary debate and individual events. He received his MA from Oregon State. He was a competitor at the national level for 4 years at Carroll College. He finished his competitive career second in the prestigious national 1995 NPDA championship against Willamette and as one of the top 10 speakers.

Scott Millward was drafted at the 11th hour to work with the CEDA team. He has a BA from UC, Berkeley in legal studies and a master's from CSU, Sacramento in communication. His legal expertise is key in unraveling the title VII resolution this year.

Sarah Chan won a scholarship to the World Debate Institute at the U of Vermont this summer where she earned accolades for her outstanding performance. She won the coveted "Hat" award given to those students who have exemplified a willingness to assist others along with an impressive work effort. She was touted as one of the most responsible debaters for making the program a success. Among the 60 teams in competition she and her partner (Jim Zhang) finished 7th in the institute, and she was the number 10 speaker in the outstanding speaker category. Sarah is coaching the novice CEDA squad this year.

Jayme Maltbie and Alex Kramer are completing their senior projects by coaching novice Parliamentary debate and developing workshops for the new Judge Training program. You may recall they successfully competed against the Oxford and Cambridge debate teams last Spring, and entertained an auditorium full of students at the Forensics Colloquium with their witty banter.

Interested in joining SJSU's award-winning Forensics team or just want more information about it? Contact the Director of Forensics, Genelle Austin-Lett, at genelle@concentric.net or 408-924-5382.

The Communication Studies Lab is
open sign

The COMM Lab is open! Located in HGH 231, the Lab's hours are 8:30-6:00, M-Th (closed F).
Upcoming workshops include:

9/21	3-5 p.m.	Communication Tips for Care-givers and Support People
9/22	3-5 p.m.	Outlining Skills
9/24	4:30-6:30 p.m.	Communication and Your Career
9/29	3-5 p.m.	Listening Skills
9/30	6-8 p.m.	Delivery Skills

October workshop topics:

Intercultural Communication
Writing Personal Statements for Law School
Communicating with your Boss
Persuasion
Problem Solving
Beginning Research on the Internet
Communication in Multicultural Organizations

Need more information about the COMM Lab? Contact the Lab Coordinator, Beth Von Till, at mvontill@email.sjsu.edu or 408-924-5384.

Publications

Stephanie J. Coopman & Katherine Burnett Meidlinger (1998). Interpersonal stories told by a Catholic parish staff. American Communication Journal, 1(3). available at: http://www.americancomm.org/~aca/acj/acj.html.

An interview with James Lull, conducted by Prof. Thomas Tufte of the U of Copenhagen, Denmark and Prof. Nilda Jacks of the Catholic U, Porto Alegre, Brazil, was recently published in Causas y Azares, No. 7, Winter 1998, Buenos Aires, Argentina (in Spanish).

James Lull (1998). Why White Guys Play Golf! San José, CA: East Side Books. Available from <"A HREF="http://www.amazon.com">amazon.com.

Raymie McKerrow, Andrew F. Wood, & Matthew J. Smith (1998). Publishing on-line: Challenging standards of hiring, promotion, and tenure. American Communication Journal, 1(3). available at: http://www.americancomm.org/~aca/acj/acj.html.

John Smith & Andrew F. Wood (1998). Communication and campaigns. Dubuque, IA Kendall/Hunt.

Andrew F. Wood & Tyrone Adams (1998). Embracing the machine: Quilt and quilting as community-building architecture. In B. Ebo (Ed.), Cyberghetto or cybertopia? Race, class, and gender on the Internet (pp. 219-233). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Speaking and Listening High School Graduation Standards:
A California Success Story
Judith A. Barnes
Director, Teacher Education

magic of learning Last spring I was appointed to the California Education Round Table (CERT) Assessment Task Force to work on further development of the English Language Arts standards. The new task force was asked to add curriculum and assessment suggestions and include annotated student work and rubrics to measure competency. The CERT task force report, Performance Standards and Assessment Criteria in English Language Arts for California High School Graduates, will be published later this year and available at http://www.otan.dni.us/certicc. The inclusion of speaking and listening standards for graduation in California is an important success for our field; speech communication finally has begun to get rightful recognition as a major language art. The California Speech Communication Association (CSCA) followed up immediately by establishing its own task force, headed by Tim Hegstrom, to disseminate the new standards information through workshop offerings for in-service English teachers and credential candidates. You will hear more about these workshops in future Perspectives. These new standards may also drive changes in teacher preparation and curriculum for California High Schools. Some of you may not know of the years of struggle in our field to achieve such a goal.

A Brief History

Over the past 15 years, intense scrutiny of teacher preparation and K-12 curriculum content has occurred nationally. Speech communication scholars explored the failure of high schools to provide substantive instruction in speech communication skills essential for effective participation in society. This attention led to the redesign of K-12 standards by the National Communication Assn. (NCA) in 1996, discussed in my Vol. 6 No. 1 Perspectives column.

Discussions about speech communication competencies were initiated in 1993 with the newly-formed California Commission on Teaching Credentialing (CTC). These discussions were timely because the CTC had just finished new California English Teacher Preparation Standards which stressed the integration of the language arts in the high school curriculum. It was through the California State Communication Assn. (CSCA) that I was placed on the new CTC English Subject Matter Review Board which had previously included only English teachers. The Association also helped make the graduation requirements in speaking and listening a reality by remaining active in Sacramento politics. The CSCA has an impressive history of political attempts to influence graduation requirements, teacher preparation, and curriculum. If you are not a CSCA member, you may contact me for membership information.

Prof. Barnes is chair of the department's Curriculum Committee. Contact Prof. Barnes at barnes@email.sjsu.edu, 408-924-5511, or stop by her office, HGH 211.

Calendar Notes

Oct. 8, Distinguished Visitor: Prof. Jorge Gonzalez, Cooperative Colloquium with Santa Clara U; call (408-924-5360) or email the department for more information

Oct. 20, 12:30-2:30 p.m., Communication Career Day, Guadalupe Room, SJSU Student Center

Website Construction Links

Sites that make this version of the newsletter possible!

HTML Goodies: Everything you need to know to set up your own website.

ClipArt Collection: Many free cartoons, like the one from Bloomfield County above, and other images to download for use on not-for-profit websites.

DLA Web Designs: Clip art organized by holiday and topics.

Media Builder: Thousands of animated gifs, borders, backgrounds, fonts, and icons; includes an easy-to-use buttom customizer and other online imaging tools.

Flags of all Countries: Organized alphabetically, this site not only has flags of the world (like the one of Mexico in this issue of the newsletter), but also offers geographical information and other facts about each country.

Animation Factory: Animated gifs for every occasion.

Renet's Other Cool Pages: Clipart organized by topic areas. Some pages take a few minutes to load, but are worth the wait.

The Mining Co. Guide to Web Clip Art: A well-organized index of clip art and other web design sites; includes descriptions and previews of sites. Should be your first stop when searching for that perfect graphic.

Perspectives

Perspectives is published quarterly by the Department of Communication Studies and V.O.I.C.E., San José State University, San José, CA 95192-0112.
Dept. Chair: Dr. Dennis Jaehne
Editor: Dr. Stephanie J. Coopman
Contributors: Genelle Austin-Lett, Dr. Judith Barnes, Kenneth Salter

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Early Fall 1998, Vol. 6, No. 3

SCU and SJSU Sponsor Annual Lecture Series

DEPARTMENT WELCOMES NEW FACULTY

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