Engaging Communication

A conference for organizational communication scholars and practitioners in Aspen, Colorado

Engaging Useful Accessible Communication

August 1-3, 2009

Distinguished Speakers and Organizers

Contact:

Jennifer Hane
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

(719) 255-3180 OR

(800) 990-UCCS x3180

Fax: (719) 255-3716

jhane@uccs.edu

Many thanks to the dynamic team of organizers involved in this year's conference planning:

Brenda J. Allen, University of Colorado at Denver

Kevin Barge, Texas A & M

Sarah Dempsey, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Scott Dickmeyer, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Gail Fairhurst, University of Cincinnati

Michele Jackson, University of Colorado at Boulder

Tim Kuhn, University of Colorado at Boulder

Dave Siebold, University of California, Santa Barbara

Pamela Shockley-Zalabak, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Jennifer Lyn Simpson, University of Colorado at Boulder

Paaige Turner, Saint Louis University

Jennifer A. Ziegler (Ph.D., University of Colorado), is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. Her research focuses on communication in the management of risk and safety in dangerous occupations, with a specific emphasis on wildland firefighting. Her scholarly work encompasses cultural, rhetorical and critical perspectives, and has appeared in journals such as Communication Monographs, Management Communication Quarterly and the journal Leadership. Dr. Ziegler teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in organizational communication and integrated communication, and is a frequent contributor to the networked community of practice that is devoted to wildland firefighting safety.Her research program was also recently profiled in a special issue on engaged communication research in Journal of Applied Communication Research.

Laurie Lewis (Ph.D. University of California at Santa Barbara) is an Associate Professor in Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information. She teaches and conducts research in areas of organizational change, stakeholder communication, nonprofit organizations, and interorganizational collaboration. She is also the Director of the Master of Communication and Information Studies program at Rutgers. Dr. Lewis is a recognized expert in communication processes during organizational change. Her book Implementing change in organizations: A stakeholder communication perspective is being published by Blackwell. Other work includes a co-authored book: Assessing the impact of the Spellings Commission: The message, the messenger, and the dynamics of change in higher education. (National Association of College and Business Officers, 2008). Her research has appeared in Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of Business Communication among others. Dr. Lewis has directed many major grant projects and has consulted and done training for a number of for-profit and nonprofit and governmental organizations including Habitat for Humanity, USAID, Internal Revenue Service, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Community Action Network, Frito Lay, Merrill Lynch, and Kraft Foods.

Linda L. Putnam (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is Professor of Organizational Communication at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She formerly served as a Regent's Professor and as the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. At Texas A&M, she was also Department Head (1993-1998) and Director of the Program on Conflict and Dispute Resolution in the Bush School of Government and Public Service (1998-2003). Her research focuses on negotiation and conflict management in organizations, discourse studies in organizations, and gender and negotiation. Her early research centered on communication strategies and tactics in teacher's bargaining. Dr. Putnam's recent research analyzes conflict framing in multiparty environmental disputes, especially in the ways that different stakeholders make sense of complex, seemingly intractable conflicts. She has received several major grants to fund this research and has an extensive publication record. Dr. Putnam teaches courses on communication and conflict management, negotiation, gender and organizations, qualitative methods, and discourse analysis in organizations. She has won teaching awards, including the AMOCO and college level awards at Texas A&M University and Purdue University.

Phillip K. Tompkins (Ph.D., Purdue University) is Professor Emeritus of Communication and Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He is the author of articles published in such journals as The James Joyce Quarterly, Esquire, The Quarterly Journal Of Speech, Philosophy And Rhetoric, and Communication Monographs. He is the author of a number of books, including Apollo, Challenger, Columbia: The decline of the space program. For over ten years he has served as a volunteer at the St. Francis Center, a homeless shelter in Denver, Colorado. Active among non-profit organizations dedicated to helping the homeless and indigent people of Colorado, an essay by Tompkins, "Communication, Charity, Social Justice, and the Abolition of Homelessness" was published as a book chapter in 2006. His new book, Who is my neighbor? Communicating and organizing to end homelessness, will be in bookstores in October of 2009.