Dr. Kate Willink, Associate Professor

Research

My research centers on critical intercultural communication with a focus on cultural memory. In particular, I examine how performances of cultural memory shape contemporary debates over public education. My work is driven by the argument that public education is the key civil rights struggle of our time—a critical nexus of social, cultural, and educational issues. As a communication scholar, I research this lived history of education policy as it illuminates a deeper relationship between pedagogy and cultural politics and shapes contemporary cultural debates about public education. My arguments engage the interdisciplinary field of critical pedagogy studies, which theorizes pedagogy broadly conceived as a form of cultural and political production constituted in formal and informal teaching and learning that is profoundly connected to knowledge, subjectivities, and our social relations.

In Bringing Desegregation Home (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), I address the extent to which the everyday experiences of desegregation are entangled with broad scholarly concerns such as pedagogy, social and cultural capital, the economy, cultural memory, and racism. The book argues for a deeper understanding of how everyday memory performance works as a form of public pedagogy, shaping contemporary understandings of racial inequality and interracial communities, and inspiring or subverting ongoing attempts to bring about social change

My research explores how performances of personal and cultural memories shape identity and belonging, and are in turn shaped by discursive, political, and cultural forces. My scholarship understands the performance of cultural memory as dialogic in nature. In my fieldwork, the ethnographic interview works as a co-performance and listens for multivocalic nature of utterances—shaped by past performances and present exigencies. Through repeated in-depth interviews, my work forwards an ethnographic oral history method as an iterative, relational, dialogic process mediated through narrative performance. My contributions to method have been an effort to answer questions about how ethnographic oral history can help communities embrace and rethink their history, policy, and practice.

Community Based Teaching and Research

As part of my pedagogy, I have implemented numerous community research projects, including a multi-class long-term partnership with El Centro Humanitario. This partnership has resulted in: public events, a dialogic performance, fifteen qualitative research interviews, a panel with DU graduate students presented at the Western States Communication Association, and a paper that I coauthored with my doctoral advisee, "Unpacking the Process of Cultural Dialogue: A Conversation about Power and Privilege" in Cultural Studies <=>Critical Methodologies. My approach assumes that classrooms are not the only spaces where learning takes place, nor are books and articles the only means through which we can gain knowledge. At the same time, experience alone does not automatically encourage learning or increase wisdom. For this reason, these courses combine in-depth discussion based on careful reading, interactive workshops to develop necessary research methods, and community-engaged research. I am currently co-authoring a paper with another doctoral advisee, "An Embarrassment of Riches": Bridging Qualitative Communication Studies and Participant Action Research Towards An Innovative Social Justice Agenda." This piece focuses on Participant Action Research from a Communication Studies perspective and guides my approach to community-based teaching and research. The topics of classes I teach include: The Long Civil Rights Movement; Critical Pedagogy and Culture; Culture and Affect; Education and Social Change; Gender, Culture, and Communication; Between Memory and Imagination; and Food Culture: Foodies, Foragers, and Food Politics.

 

Dr. Elizabeth Suter, Assistant Professor

Dr. Elizabeth Suter's graduate teaching includes courses in family communication, identity and relationships, and research interviewing. Suter's program of research is centrally concerned with the communicative negotiation of identity. She has pursued this program looking at how identities are negotiated via symbolic and discursive means at the borders of relationships and families as a whole.

Research

Her program of research draws attention to how context, culture, and networks impact individual, relational, and family identities. For instance, her research has focused on cultural assumptions (e.g., who counts as family and how families should be, conventional gender role expectations) and ideologies (e.g., heteronomativity, patronymy). Suter's research takes a qualitative approach to her study of family, relational, and gender communication, making use of a broad range of qualitative ways of collecting data, including individual interviews, couple interviews, focus group interviews, and surveys with open-ended questions. Likewise, she employs a variety of methods to analyze such data, such as grounded theory analysis, thematic analysis, qualitative categorical coding verified via inter-rater reliability.

Publications

Suter has published articles in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Family Communication, Journal of Family Issues, Western Journal of Communication, Sex Roles, Women and Language, Journal of Lesbian Studies, The Communication Review, The Qualitative Report.

Aaron P. Donaldson, Ph.D. Candidate

I am currently a Graduate Teaching Instructor and Ph.D. candidate in Communications Studies emphasizing rhetoric and ethics.

Research

My research dwells on the ethical implications that sit at the intersection of language-use and perception. I earned an interdisciplinary MS at the University of Oregon in rhetoric and education where I studied ethics-based approaches to rhetoric (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, Booth) as well as psychology (empathic accuracy and metaperceptions), and foundational neural-sensory development. My doctoral study consists of surveying the fields of embodied cognition and affect as they interact with contemporary and traditional understandings of human "symbolicity." I believe that the attitudes, postures, and symbols that we activate to engage the world exert very literal (and often very problematic) influence on the "material" nature of our experience, and I aspire to interrogate those influences within the discourses of race, health care, consumption, history, and argumentation. I am currently working to develop an ontology and pedagogy for human communication that draws on ethics-bound theories of the Other (hooks, Levinas , Buber, Conquergood) to help us remain sensitive to these fluid realities in the practice of our everyday lives.

Teaching Profile

Teaching is at the heart of the human experience. I feel strongly that the primary obligation for any so-called expert is to make themselves and their material as available and applicable to the public as possible. Aside from the basic communication courses I have taught at DU (Speaking on Ideas That Matter, Small Group Communication, Communication in Popular Culture), I have more than ten years of teaching experience in academic debate and speech including a 2009 National Parliamentary Debate Association National Sweepstakes Championship. I encourage every member of the community to take an early, active, and (most importantly) diverse interest in oral advocacy and deliberation, and I have explored multiple co-curricular formats to that end including: parliamentary debate; policy debate; Lincoln-Douglas debate; British parliamentary ("Oxford") debate; impromptu, extemporaneous and platform speaking; as well as solo and duet dramatic interpretation. I attempt to structure class time more as a discussion among experts-in-training rather than as a transmission-driven attempt to learn "facts." I encourage everyone to genuinely and exhaustively take up any and all efforts to "make sense" of the world, and I believe that our willingness to engage those efforts has a profound effect on "the world" as we see it.

Caroline Davidson, HCOM Major

Why an HCOM Major?

The primary reason I chose to be a human communication major was because of its many diverse applications. I was originally a journalism major, but I decided that something with a broader and wider base of applications would be a better choice. At the time, I was not certain what career path was right for me so choosing a major that had the potential to lead to many different career paths was essential. I took a communication class and enjoyed it. After taking that first class I knew that I wanted to be a communication major.

What have I learned in some of my classes?

I have learned many important and useful skills in my communication classes. In my eyes, the most important ones have been gaining the ability to think critically and express myself effectively in both written and oral communication. I have also learned how important and essential communication is to our everyday lives. Specifically, in a class titled Dialogue, Culture and Conflict I learned it is possible to break down barriers through communication. I also learned the importance and what an amazing impact that group collaboration can have. I also participated in an independent study course titled, MySpace and Identity where I worked one on one with a professor to develop and conduct a series of focus groups with high school students to learn about how they portray their personal identity on MySpace. I took much away from this course because I learned how to conduct focus groups and carry out a research project from start to finish.

How does my major connect to my future plans?

My major is very connected to my future plans. I recently got accepted and starting taking classes in the 3 +2 graduate program here at DU. I am working to get my masters in business administration with a concentration in integrated marketing communication. My background in communication is obviously very integral and important in this facet of marketing. The skills I learned as a communication major will help me be successful in the future and will allow me to communicate more effectively in advertising and marketing.

Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell, Associate Professor

Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell researches and teaches in the area of Culture and Communication. She is also the Director of Graduate Studies. She received her B.A. and M.A. in Communication Studies from Arizona State University and earned her Ph.D. in Communication Studies with an emphasis on Performance Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently the Past-Chair of the Latina/o Communication Studies Division and La Raza Caucus of the National Communication Association and on the editorial boards of Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Text and Performance Quarterly, Women's Studies in Communication, Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, and Western Journal of Communication.

Research & Publications

Her research converges around issues of performance, rhetoric, and intersectionality, particularly within Chicana/o and Latina/o communities. Methodologically her work in centered in performative writing, performance ethnography, and critical rhetoric. Her work has been published Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Text and Performance Quarterly, The Communication Review, Cultural Studies ó Critical Methodologies, and Communication, Culture, and Critique. Her co-authored piece "Reading Latina/o Images: Interrogating Americanos" was given the 2004 Distinguished Scholarship Award by the International and Intercultural Division of the National Communication Association. She is also author of the book Latina/o Communication Studies: Theorizing Performance. Most recently, she co-edited a special issue of Text and Performance Quarterly on "Latina/o Performativities" with Dr. Shane Moreman of California State University, Fresno.

Mentoring

Mentoring is extremely important to Dr. Calafell as she takes great pride in the mentoring relationships she has had with undergraduates and graduate students at Syracuse University and the University of Denver. She has also written about mentoring in her essay, "Mentoring and Love" published in Cultural Studies ó Critical Methodologies.

Katherine Hurley, Communication Studies Major

Research
I have always been fascinated by how individuals navigate and communicate the precarious processes of negotiating their identities as they move through different stages in life. My dissertation deals directly with the concepts of rhetoric and identity. I focus on the narratives currently surrounding childhood immunizations, specifically the stories of parents who are either pro-vaccination or anti-vaccination. I examine how parents rhetorically construct their identities as "good" parents through these narratives by using the narrative paradigm of Walter Fisher and Kenneth Burke's concept of identification and the guilt/purification/redemption cycle. Parents on both sides of the controversy frame themselves as making the right decision for their children regarding vaccination or construct their stories as a warning to others who would be "good parents." Another aspect of identity construction I am vitally interested in is that of gender, and I look forward to advancing a new line of research once my dissertation is completed, related to the ways in which parents of both sexes are rhetorically constructed along certain gender lines. Another proposed project would be to study the ways in which masculinity and fatherhood are rhetorically constructed in a series of public service announcements from the National Fatherhood Initiative-currently, these public service announcements construct fatherhood in less stereotypical ways (such as a father practicing cheerleading with his daughter) while also playing on traditional depictions of masculinity to counteract the divergence from the norm (the Initiative's slogan is: "It takes a man to be a dad.") While much has been done on the rhetorical construction of women and mothers in popular culture, the changing identity of fathers seems to be a field ripe with promise.

Teaching
Teaching has always been my priority, my focus, and my sheer joy. My teaching style is informed by my background in education as well as my focus on feminism, critical thinking, ethics, my passion for writing, and my enthusiasm for the field of communication studies. These foci infuse my teaching philosophy and the objectives I have for each class I teach. Whether I teach a class focusing on public speaking, on communication, on gender, on popular culture and media studies, on composition, or on ethics, I aim to help students achieve the following objectives: respect for one another and the class as a whole, which occurs in a collegial atmosphere with an approachable teacher; engaged learning through active participation and real-world application of the material; being challenged; understanding the material; and gaining confidence in their  intellectual abilities. The classroom dynamic is always changing-the students, the materials, the topics, the environment are different from class to class. I am moved by the progress students show in gaining confidence in their intellectual abilities. I would like to continue helping students to unpack the world around them in ways they have never before considered and to give them the tools to be competent contributors to their communities.

Dr. Erin Willer, Assistant Professor

Research
My overarching program of research focuses on the communicative management of relational difficulty within intra/intergroup contexts and how such management impacts well-being and identity. An ultimate goal of this work is to develop intervention strategies designed to teach people how to communicatively manage difficulty in a manner that will lead to improved sense of self, as well as increased individual and relational health. Theoretically speaking, my work typically is grounded in narrative theorizing and takes an intra/intergroup approach, utilizing social identity theory, facework/politeness, the expressive writing paradigm, and life story research. Through a dark side lens, some of my research attends to the functional ambivalence inherent in communicative phenomena (e.g., the bright side of social aggression). With these foundations in mind, the lion's share of my research focuses on social aggression (e.g., gossip, exclusion, friendship manipulation) among girls and women. My dissertation, which is currently under review for publication, tested a narrative sense-making metaphor intervention designed to help middle school girls communicate about and cope with their experiences with meanness. Along with my colleague Bill Cupach from Illinois State University, I currently am conducting a study on social aggression in adult women's social networks, focusing on the relationship between factors such as narcissism, social comparison, face threat, and forgiveness. Christy Rittenour, my colleague from West Virginia University, and I also are collecting data on memorable messages about popularity that mothers communicate to daughters and the relationship between such messages and prosocial and antisocial behavior. Building on research on the health benefits of narrative disclosure, Jody Koenig Kellas and I, along colleagues at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, are conducting an experimental study. The purpose not only is to test the impact of storylistening behaviors on distress, but also to determine which listening behaviors are most beneficial to those telling stories of difficulty. My newest research extends the study of the communicative management of relational difficulty to understand compassionate care within the infertility patient-healthcare provider context. I am interested in understanding how (un)compassion contributes to patients' infertile identity and treatment distress. Examples of my research can be found in upcoming and recent publications. My coauthor, Jordan Soliz, and I have an article being published in Personal Relationships at the end of 2010 on social aggression in college women's friendship networks. I also have two chapters in the 2011 edition of the The Dark Side of Personal Relationships-II. One, co-authored with Bill Cupach, is on the dark and bright sides of social aggression and intervention and the other, authored with Jody Koenig Kellas and Haley Kranstuber, is on the functional ambivalence inherent in narrative sense-making processes.

Teaching
Being a professor at DU is a dream given I get to teach unique and engaging undergraduate and graduate courses. Some of the classes I teach include Quantitative Research Methods, The Dark Side of Relationships, Gender and Communication, and Interpersonal Communication Theory. I also have had the opportunity to design and teach an undergraduate first-year seminar titled, The Adolescent and Teenage Years: Intergroup Parameters and Dimensions. In addition to this course being about two of my favorite topics-young people and identity-I also am enjoying the opportunity to mentor students in their first year at DU. As a former high school teacher, it has been especially meaningful for me to teach these fresh undergraduates about intergroup-related processes such homophobic victimization, social aggression, hate, and prejudice. I believe I find such meaning in teaching this course because it gives me an opportunity to shape engaged citizens who have the power to impact their communities in socially significant ways.