a quarterly newsletter published by the Department of Communication Studies
San José State University, Early Fall, Vol. 8, No. 3
sjsucomm@email.sjsu.edu www.sjsu.edu/depts/commstudies

While Dr. Andy Wood has only been doing his computer magic a short time in Communications Studies at SJSU, he's already made a lasting mark. Since his debut here, Dr. Wood has provided the Dept.'s long missing technological link to the Internet and the rest of the Dot.Comm revolution taking place in the Silicon Valley. His first order of business was to design Web pages for all the department's many programs. By extending his knowledge and exuberance for his specialty to every faculty member, Dr. Wood has succeeded in bringing the entire department into the exciting swirl of Web mania that the dept. now shares with its students.

In Comm 181, Communication and the Internet, Dr. Wood teaches his students basic HTLM, web page design, and the skills needed to utilize the vast resources of the Internet. Dr. Wood has also transformed Comm 149, Rhetoric and Public Life, a required class that students had come to dread, into an exciting challenge by incorporating new methods. By using an on-line community forum to supplement class meetings, Dr. Wood provided his students with a novel meeting place and an opportunity to bounce thoughts and ideas around among themselves in way they couldn't do in a class meeting one night a week. Dr. Wood was also able to use the Web page to provide students with more extensive materials to clarify and expand upon the classroom discussions. The new approaches and challenges offered by Dr. Wood are having a positive effect on students' attitudes about this course required of all majors. One student even commented that, "Missing 90210 every week isn't as bad as I thought it would be."

In addition to his teaching duties, Dr. Wood has been very active winning support for spreading his message on the convention trail. He wrote a successful Professional Development Grant to support travel to NCA and WSCA meetings. Dr. Wood was able to share his new approaches to teaching at this year's WSCA in a panel discussion on "Uses of Technology in Teaching and Scholarship." Dr. Phil Wander also took part and together they were able to discuss their exciting partnership in creating a student Web site called Woz Way where Comm students could publish cultural biographies of San Jose they wrote as class research projects. Dr. Wood was able to suggest how the instructors present might integrate the latest technology and resources in their teaching in the future.

At last year's NCA Convention, Dr. Wood presented a paper entitled, "The World is Not Like Celebration: Rhetorical Displacement in Disney's Celebration," and another titled, "Click Here and You're There: Learning and Teaching Metaphors Online." His most recent successful scholarship is in association with Dr. Matthew Smith of Indiana University, Southbend. Their book entitled, Communicating Online: Linking Technology, Identity and Culture, is being published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates and should be available next April.

Aside from teaching and scholarship, Dr. Wood maintains the Comm Dept.'s Website, he constantly updates Comm Dept. programs and offerings. Dr. Wood was just appointed as an Alquist Faculty-in-Residence for Fall 2000. He will present several workshops designed to help faculty integrate technology into their instructional efforts. He even sees that this newsletter gets posted for Web browsers. What a great way to learn about our unique department. Thank you Andy Wood. We couldn't get along without you

Spano Outstanding Professor for 2000 Class

The Department's Graduation Commencement Ceremony was a gala affair despite being interrupted by a fire alarm. BRIAN SPARKS was chosen Outstanding Student. RONA HALUALANI was chosen Outstanding Mentor Professor. MEREDITH SAITO won the Marie Carr award and scholarship. SAGE FELICIANO won the Minnie Carr award and scholarship. In addition to being named SJSU's Outstanding Professor for 1999/2000 by President Caret and giving the address at the Honors Convocation on April 14, 2000, SHAWN SPANO was also elected by the class of 2000 Comm graduates as their Outstanding Professor. Professor Spano gave the following Convocation Address on May 25, 2000 at the Comm Dept. Graduation Ceremonies."

I would like to thank the graduation committee and this year's graduates for recognizing me and giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. This ceremony is a special event because it celebrates our local community. I like to think of the department of communication studies as a little oasis in the vast and complex bureaucratic maze we call San Jose State University. This little oasis of ours is also an academic department, of course.

And for me, that's what really connects us. All of us up here on the stage, the graduates and the faculty, participate in a field of study, the study of human communication. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you something about what we teach and what we study, and what our graduates have learned."

One of the core assumptions in our field is that communication is a complex process. This is a basic assumption, so basic, in fact, that it's covered in every introductory course and textbook. But what does it mean? One way to describe communication as a process is to compare it to water. You can put your hands in water, swim around in it, and drink it. Because you can see it, taste it, and feel it on your skin, you know it's real. But the moment you try to grab communication, hold on to it, it slips through your fingers. Communication just doesn't stand still long enough. The more we look at it the more it changes; sometimes it changes because we look at it."

To say communication is a complex process, then, is to say that it has more than one side. On the one hand, communication produces tangible products, like media images, behaviors, and social actions. These things we can see; we know they exist because they have personal properties. And yet, there is also the other side of communication - the mysterious, ephemeral side. This is the side that comes into play whenever we try to figure out what the meaning is behind the images, behaviors and actions.

What is the meaning of a speech, a picture, a conversation, a poem, a relationship? It's hard to answer these kinds of questions with certainty because there is a part of communication that is elusive, mysterious. Like water, it slips through our fingers."

So how does this assumption apply to real life? Remember the Elian Gonzales case? What is the meaning of that now famous photograph of the federal marshal with the rifle? Does the photo depict an illegal raid by an intrusive government, an invasion into the sanctuary of a private home? Or does it show a lawful attempt by a benevolent government to rescue a young boy and reunite him with his father? This is what communication does. It offers up multiple interpretations, multiple ways of making sense of the world."

Here is another real life example. Awhile back, there was a debate going on in San Luis Obispo about what to do with a road in town that was always congested with traffic. Some people defined the problem by saying that the road was too narrow. Bud Zeuschner, a communication professor at Cal Poly, who happened to be on the city council, chose to describe the situation in a different way. He said the problem was not that the road was too narrow; the problem was that there were too many cars on the road. Communication is flexible. It allows us to walk around a problem and define it in more than one way. And how we define a problem is really important because it determines how we go about solving it. Should we build a bigger road, or should we reduce the number of cars? It depends on how we define the problem."

In addition to mass media and problem-solving, the idea that communication is a process also has major impact on our interpersonal relationships. For example, young children are dependent on their parents; as teenagers they rebel against their parents. As adults they might develop mutual friendships with their parents. Eventually, as time marches on, they will find themselves having to care for their parents. All of our Relationships - those with family, friends, and co-workers - change and develop over time. Even though we might want to freeze some of our relationships, hold them firmly in place once and for all, we can't stop the process. Parents need to let their children grow up, and children need to let their parents grow old. And both of them need to use communication to negotiate their changing relationship."

It seems to me that one of the things that sets our graduates apart is their ability to understand and act on the assumption that communication is a complex process. I'll go even further and say that because our graduates have studied communication in this way, they are in a perfect position to be successful in their professional and personal lives." Let's face it, we live in a crazy world; everything keeps shifting and moving. To be successful, we have to be able to adapt to cultural change and technological innovation. We can't afford to get stuck, to get locked into old ways of thinking.

Today, we have to be able to 'talk outside the box;' we have to know how to 'keep the conversation going.' our students, this year's graduates, have learned how to do this. They understand that communication always calls forth multiple interpretations. They know how to walk around a problem and define it in more than one way. They recognize that relationships are always in motion, always developing and evolving."

Congratulations to the department of communication studies class of 1999-2000. As graduates of this department, you have demonstrated the ability to participate in the ongoing, mysterious, and elusive process of human communication. I wish you well."

Comm Pre-Legal News

Exciting news from CHRIS PASZKOWSKI (Comm 2000). Chris is enrolled in the first year class of McGeorge Law School in Sacramento and loving the challenge.

KEN SALTER has completed his research on the French jury trial system. He will present his findings after observing the French cour d'assises in November, 1999 assizes in Riom, France. He will discuss how the French select their juries and how the system, where 9 lay jurors sit and deliberate with 3 professional judges, compares to our jury system in a Comm Dept Colloquium on October 26, 2000 from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m. in HGH 225.Salter has also written an account of a tense and dramatic drug/murder trial that saw an all-white French jury sit in judgment of two groups of second generation North African immigrants. The article entitled, "A Three Day Murder Trial in the French Cour D'Assises," has been submitted to a major law review for publication and is on reserve in the Comm Lab in HGH 231 where anyone interested may read it.

Salter will offer his popular Workshop entitled, "How To Write An Effective Personal Statement For Law School," later this semester. Check the Comm Lab Workshop offerings for the time and place. Salter has been invited to attend a number of Conferences on Moot Court Programs. Several other universities are looking for student Moot Court teams to compete with their teams. SJSU has been invited to bring a student Moot Court team to debate a case involving a Second Amendment right to bear arms and Commerce Clause fact situation. The Moot Court demonstration would be presented February 24, 2001 at the Pacific Southwest Academy of Legal Studies in Business Convention to be held in Palm Springs, CA. A student team from Chapman College will also compete. See Ken Salter for the Moot Court problem. Prof. Salter's office hours are TR 9:30-12:00 in HGH 205. Phone: 408-924-5375 Fax: 510-527-5779 e-mail: ksalter@sjsu.edu.

Fall 2000 Calendar

September 12, 2000 - Comm Lab opens. Tutors still needed. Many exciting Work Shops in preparation.

October 25, 2000 - Career Day. The Comm Dept's program featuring presentations by Comm alums now employed in varied professions. A Chance to meet our successful grads and find out how they did it!

October 26, 2000 Comm Studies Colloquium. Prof. Ken Salter will present his research on the French jury system in HGH 225, 12:00-13:15.

December 8, 2000 Comm Studies Christmas Dinner. Annual faculty/student fellowship dinner to honor December 2000 Comm grads. Date & time to be posted.

Weekly Meetings VOICE club - see Prof. Rona Halualani for times and dates.

Forensics News - Genelle Austin-Lett Director

This year is a rebuilding year after so many successful and dedicated debaters graduated in May. It's a great opportunity for Comm Majors and Minors to get involved at the Novice level or pick up a unit or two judging local high school debate tournaments. Stroll by the trophy case, then drop by Prof. Austin-Lett's office in HGH 214 and get involved.

Chiba University, Japan, Continues ties to Dept. for 3rd year.

TAKAHIRO NISHINO, YOYO HINUMA, and MAMI IWATA are currently taking Physics and Comm classes as a part of Chiba's special honor's program for physics students. Mami Iwata is the first woman admitted to the program and YOSHI SHIMADA is returning for advanced study in Astronomy as well as engineering after participating last year. Two other participants from last year, KEI MATSUO and JUNYA YAGI, will stay with Prof. BETH VON TILL in Sept. to revisit with faculty and colleagues while looking at local graduate programs.

This year's visiting students were accompanied by Dr. Ohyama of Chiba who introduced the students to the Comm faculty at the first departmental meeting. He expressed how important it was for creative and innovative science students to study and learn abroad. SJSU faculty involved in facilitating this innovative program include: BETH VON TILL, RICK WEB, and MELODY ROSS from Comm Studies, Chair JOE BECKER, MARVIN MORRIS and MATT UMURAN from Physics, GUNA SELVADURAY from MATE, JENNY HUANG at the Japanese Consulate, and students in the JAPAN CLUB of SJSU.

The three visiting students will visit Bay Science labs and exhibits as well as spend a week interning at Applied Materials, Inc. in Santa Clara.