Carol Ann Bassett conducted a nature writing workshop at Mount Pisgah in August called “Writing About Landscape.”

Tom Bivins presented a paper at the Conference on Global Ethics at Washington and Lee University in early November. He also spoke about marketing ethics at the American Marketing Association’s luncheon in Eugene this fall and is currently working on a book on ethics and persuasion.

Charlie Frazer traveled to Australia, where he consulted for Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on curriculum development and the establishment of their doctoral program. He also presented a paper, co-authored by Charles Patti of QUT and Kim Sheehan, entitled “Advertising Strategy and Effective Advertising: Comparing the U.S. and Australia” at the Asia Pacific Conference of the American Academy of Advertising.

Charlie Frazer

Lauren Kessler is hard at work on her tenth book, Queen Spy (HarperCollins), the true story of a prim and proper New England-born, Vassar-educated young woman who became the leader of the two largest Soviet spy rings in WWII-era America. Kessler’s essay, “I Love Rain,” appears in the winter issue of Oregon Quarterly. Her witty (she hopes) guide to avoiding self-sabotage in writing, “Don’t Do It!,” appears in the winter 2002 Guide to Writing Fiction published by Writer’s Digest. As part of “The World’s Largest Writing Workshop,” co-sponsored by Barnes and Noble and Writer’s Digest, she led a session entitled “The 10 stupid things writers do to mess up their lives.” Kessler’s book, The Happy Bottom Riding Club, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award’s best literary nonfiction prize.

David Koranda accompanied the Ad Team to compete in the national finals of the American Advertising Competition in Cleveland after they won the regional competition. He also participated in an advertising account planning conference in Las Vegas.

Duncan McDonald was re-elected to another two-year term on the Board of Directors of the Accrediting Council on Graduate Medical Education, which certifies more than 8,000 medical residency programs in the United States. He was also appointed to a working group to develop a policy on duty hours for medical residents, whose training and patient care responsibilities require lengthy work days and work weeks. In November, McDonald welcomed a group of new print and broadcast reporters to a special community news training session at The Register-Guard, which also featured presentations by SOJC faculty and alumni.

Julianne Newton was invited to present her paper, “Visualizing Terror and Peace: Dreams and Nightmares, Media and Meaning,” at a National Communication Association panel addressing the events of September 11. She also presented at the opening panel for the Northwest Graduate Student Conference in October, an AEJMC panel in Washington, D.C. in August, the Visual Communication conference XV in Oregon in June, and at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s conference entitled Visual Communication: Rhetorics and Technology. She is currently the editor of Visual Communication Quarterly, where she served as section editor in 2000-01. AEJMC president-elect Ted Glasser appointed her to the Task Force on the Status and Future of the Structure/Organization of AEJMC 2001-03.

David Koranda

Scott Maier was elected head of the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism Mass Communication. He also made several presentations at the AEJMC annual convention in Washington, D.C. Maier presented a paper on intellectual property in cyberspace at the annual convention of the Association of Internet Researchers. American Journalism published his article “The Digital Watchdog’s First Byte: Journalism’s First Computer Analysis of Government Records.” Another article (co-authored with Deborah Potter), “Public Journalism Through the Lens: How Television Broadcasters Covered Campaign ’96,” was published in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Debra Merskin’s essays “Prescription for Profit” and “Hollywood Sees Horror Transformed into Reality” appeared on the op-ed pages of The Oregonian and The Register-Guard, respectively. She was also invited to speak on pharmaceutical advertising at two sessions of the Oregon Association of Hospital Auxiliaries in September. Her article, “Winnebagos, Cherokees, Apaches and Dakotas: The Persistence of Stereotyping of American Indians in American Advertising Brands” was published in The Howard Journal of Communication. Merskin was elected 2002-03 Vice-Chair of the ICA’s communication division. She is currently working on a textbook, Mass Media in a Multicultural Society. Her article “Boys will be Boys: Portrayals of Race and Gender in Advertising that Targets Children on the Turner Cartoon Network” is scheduled for publication by the Journal of Current Issues in Advertising Research.

Dan Miller appeared on the Oregon Humanities Program on Cable 12 in October. The program was followed by an hour-long presentation of student works from the Oregon Documentary Project. Miller helped organize the First Annual Film and Video Festival in June, which was sponsored by the SOJC and the National Broadcast Society and attended by more than 300 people. Three documentaries, First Generation: The History of Chinese Immigration to Oregon; Movie Palaces: The History of Oregon’s Great Film Palaces and D’Autremonts: The Nation’s Last Great Train Robbery, which were produced by his students, premiered on OPB in 2001. He and twenty-one of his students were invited to present their project proposals at OPB Studios in Portland in October.

John Mitchell became an accredited member of the public relations profession after successfully completing a comprehensive examination governed by the Universal Accreditation Board. Eight public relations associations across the United States now participate in the program, which is administered by the Public Relations Society of America. Mitchell, communication coordinator at Eugene Water & Electric Board for the past 15 years, has begun his second stint on the board of the Greater Oregon Chapter of PRSA. He is also professional adviser for the UO chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America.

Julianne Newton

John Russial directed the 2001 Summer Journalism Workshop for High School Minority Students in June. He also co-authored two papers, entitled “Back to the Future: Teaching Copy Editing in Changing Times” and “Creating New Value for Copy Editing Instruction in the Curriculum and the University,” which were presented at the AEJMC convention in August. Russial served as a discussant for a Newspaper Division research session and as a moderator for a joint session of the Newspaper and Media Management and Economics Divisions and presented a session, “Headlines: Between the Lines,” at the American Copy Editors Society annual meeting in April and was a panelist in a second session on how copy editors interact with other departments.

Bill Ryan is designing posters and identity materials for the North West Rafting Association. He has also begun working on a book on the rivers of the Northwest. In addition, Ryan is currently consulting with Hinman Vineyards and Silvan Ridge Wineries. Two of Ryan’s students, Justin Kistner and Jason Fong, received national creativity awards and scholarships of $1,000 each from The One Club of NY.

Kim Sheehan, along with fellow faculty members Ann Maxwell and Charlie Frazer, earned a Greenfield Award, sponsored by the Friends of the Knight Library. The award was used to purchase a series of video tapes of the Clio awards for outstanding advertising. Sheehan’s article “Toward a Typology of Online User Privacy Concerns” will appear early next year in The Information Society. At June’s commencement ceremony, she won the Jonathan Marshall Award for Innovative Teaching.

Al Stavitsky presented a paper on FCC policy toward public broadcasting at the annual conference of the American Journalism Historians’ Association. He presented a paper on radio’s digital transformation at the annual conference of the AEJMC in August. Stavitsky’s article “From Class D to LPFM: The High-Powered Politics of Low-Power Radio” (co-authored by doctoral candidate Helena Vanhala and Prof. Robert K. Avery of the University of Utah) was published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. He also consulted with the University of Texas’ public radio station in the development of its start-up news department. He received the University’s Rippey Award for Innovative Teaching and will be developing an interdisciplinary Freshman Interest Group emphasizing the connections between journalism and political science.

Leslie Steeves authored a chapter titled “Development Communication as Marketing, Collective Resistance and Spiritual Awakening: A Feminist Critique” for the 3rd edition of the Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication (Thousand Oaks: Sage 2002). Along with Srinivas R. Melkote, Steeves co-authored a second edition of Communication for Development in the Third World: Theory and Practice for Empowerment. She was invited to present her paper “Trends in Feminist Scholarship in Journalism and Communication: Finding Common Ground Between Scholars and Activists Globally” at the AEJMC in August. She’s currently collaborating with Adrienne Rivers of the University of Kansas on a Kansas-Oregon summer study abroad program at the University
of Ghana, School of Communication Studies. Two SOJC students completed the program past summer.

Jim Upshaw is on sabbatical and busy writing a textbook introducing undergraduates to the field of electronic media. Upshaw moderated a panel on employment issues for new graduates at the 2001 convention of the AEJMC in August and served as a panelist on media and democracy at the Oregon Progress Forum in Portland. He was also selected as the official delegate to the Society of Professional Journalists national convention in Seattle by the Greater Oregon chapter of the SPJ.

Jim Upshaw

Jim Van Leuven wrote four chapters for the fifth edition of Public Relations: The Profession and Practice, an introductory text for students of PR. He served as a discussant for the top teaching papers in the public relations division at the AEJMC’s national meeting in August and presented at recent PRSA meetings in Salem and Eugene. Van Leuven was also appointed to the Foundation Research Board of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Janet Wasko edited a new book, Dazzled by Disney? The Global Disney Audience Project (London: Leicester University Press/Continuum 2001). She was invited to present her paper, “Disney’s America and the World” at the American Sociological Association Conference in Anaheim, Calif., in August. She presented her paper “The Magical-Market World of Disney” at the Socialist Scholars Conference in New York in April. It appeared in the Monthly Review the same month. Wasko served as a plenary speaker at the Union for Democratic Communication Conference in Ottawa in May and was interviewed for the Media Education Foundation’s video, “Behind the Screens: Hollywood Goes Hypercommercial.” Her recent publications include an article “Challenging Disney Myths” in the July issue of the Journal of Communication Inquiry and “Ten Lessons We Learned from Herb” (co-authored by Eileen Meehan) in Television & New Media’s special issue, “Remembering Herbert I. Schiller.” The Centre for International Media Analysis at the University of Luton, UK, appointed Wasko international research adviser. She received the Dallas W. Smythe Award from the Union for Democratic Communication in May.

Tom Wheeler designed a new class exploring the ethics of manipulated imagery. Recently, Wheeler has written scripts and appeared as the on-camera host for both commercial and corporate videos. He also has consulted on patent applications and mission statements, rewritten catalog copy and written and delivered speeches in tribute to some of his guitar-industry heroes.