March 2010

Council of Communication Associations

March 1, 2010 Minutes

 Attendees:
American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA)
Fred Blevens, Past President, AJHA, Florida International University
Association for Business Communication (ABC)
Betty Johnson, Executive Director, ABC; Stephen F. Austin University
Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC)
Association of Schools of Journalism & Mass Communication (ASJMC)
Barbara Hines, Howard University (BCCA, AEJMC and ASJMC)
Broadcast Education Association  (BEA)
Glenda Williams, President, BEA, University of Alabama
Max Utsler, Academic Relations VP, BEA, University of Kansas
Heather Birks, Executive Director, BEA
International Communication Association (ICA)
Patrice M. Buzzanell, (Chair) Immediate Past President, ICA, Purdue University
Linda Putnam, University of California, Santa Barbara (Call-in)
Michael Haley, ED, ICA
National Communication Association (NCA)
Betsy Bach, Associate Director for Research Initiatives, NCA
Dawn Braithwaite, President, NCA; University of Nebraska
Nancy Kidd, Executive Director, NCA
Guest:  Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Micro-Grants Project

Meeting was Called to Order Patrice Buzzanell, Chair

Introductions
Approval of Agenda
Acceptance of minutes of September 14, 2009
Special thanks to NCA for supplying the venue and lunch!

Microgrants Project – Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Background:  
The purpose of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue (CID) to connect U.S. researchers with the rest of the world with collaborative research, particularly for junior faculty and graduate students. 

Smaller grants will be given to provide opportunities for scholars to leverage in obtaining matching funds from their universities. There are funding possibilities from the Department of State (Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education) and other agencies and foundations. 

CCA would help in the push for marketing and there would be a prominent web presence. The Center could house a database of and clearninghouse for potential funding opportunities. The Center would promote collaboration among universities in different countries. 

Questions were raised about CCA liability for travel and need for international travel insurance plans. 

Action items:
– Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, as appointed Executive Director or Board Chair, would create a board with members who have grant and development experience. The CID ED would oversee the Center and is putting together a brochure. There is no request for secretarial support or funding from CCA.  
– These members would assist in development of a database with: scholars, grant possibilities, teaching opportunities, grant review procedures, and professional development opportunities.
– CID website would be linked to the CCA website and to CCA member association. The CID would be housed under the CCA address (same address as the current executive director). The cap for funding to individuals or groups is $25,000 (cap for non-profits is $25,000 before the tax status changes) and any member of CCA associations can apply. Wendy would verify membership with CCA members’ EDs. 

Email for the center – leedshur@uwp.edu or  wendy.leeds.hurwitz@gmail.co 

CCA will receive bi-annual CID updates from Wendy at all CCA meetings. 

Motion (approved):
CCA endorses the development of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue for the purpose of obtaining grants to distribute as micro-grants for cultural research to members of CCA member organizations.

 

Updates on: The NRC Doctoral Survey, ISI Rankings and the Task Force on Humanities Committee – Patrice Buzzanell and Linda Putnam

NRC Update
There is no new update available.  CCA members have been told that a report may be coming out in the Spring of 2010.

ISI Rankings
Journalism Studies has been accepted – after the 3rd attempt
59 communications journals have been cross-listed 

Ways to get journals accepted to ISI:
– Be specific about the journal mission
– Increase impact factors
– Increase International exposure (Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz offered to help with international contacts)
– Publish with regularity
– Journals can be submitted only once every two years. If a journal is rejected, the journal must wait 2 years before resubmission for ISI consideration.

Questions: Publishers are doing the nominating, do they automatically self-nominate?

Humanities Task-Force
The task force was created to establish the scope to ensure that Humanities journals get recognized and to develop quality indicators for humanities journals.

Jim Testa said that ISI reviews 2,000 Humanities journals each year. ISI is very interested in working with the task force. Testa indicated that perhaps there is not only one citation index that would be useful. ISI has reached out to regional (world-wide) journals and ISI has switched from impact factors to the quality of the operation and local impact.

ISI doesn’t drop journals unless the journal gets behind and if there are other factors, including continued extremely low impact factors.

CCA members expressed interest in the development of a list of available journals that would then be posted on the CCA website. There was a suggestion that this committee investigate the former Iowa Guide development and/or Cabell’s Directory of Publishing –  www.cabell.com

Action Items:
– Develop quality indicators
– Pull together a listing and the characteristics of journals

Roundtable Discussion on Member Activities/Developments/News:

ABC
– 4 regional conferences coming up with Dallas, Birmingham, Tokyo, and Belgium. Celebrating 75^th anniversary in Chicago in the fall.
– Almost 800 in membership, 22% are international. Usually host two international conferences per year. Annual conference will be held in Montreal.
– New editor of Journal of Business Communication and incoming new editor for Business Communication Quarterly.

ICA
– ICA’s Journal of Communication is published 6x per year and has one special issue each year.  As soon as an article is accepted it can be posted online to increase impact factors.
– Establishing a new online only journal where articles will be posted in their native language.

AEJMC
– Annual convention is in Denver, early August
– Regional meeting in Chapel Hill
– 2012 – AEJMC’s 100th anniversary, the convention will be in Chicago (where AEJMC started)
– Doing more things with social networking. Continuing to upgrade website, online publications, association-wide rather than divisional publications.
– Working to retool competitions for Teacher of the Year and Administrator of the Year.
– New plan and President has an advisory committee. She can speak fairly rapidly on issues of the day (advocacy role). 
– Developing more regional conferences with graduate student scholarships. Very good attendance at these regional meetings.

AJHA
– Protecting history/importance of history in the curriculum (Task force on the status of journalism curriculum)
– Google site for papers. People still using typewriters. Don’t know how to do PDFs.
– Voted online for online newsletter.  Will print out and mail newsletters to those who request them.
– Microgrant (5 microgrants $1200 scholarships for travel associated with research).
– Creating new award recognizing an administrator who has taken a favorable view of history (i.e., protects, promotes, recognizes) in the curriculum.
– Tuscon conference in October.
– 350 members. AJHA publishes its own journal.  First time ever, the journal turned a profit!

BCCA
– Website is down for maintenance
– Students had a conference in NC.  BCCA partners with the New York Times with student journalism institute with Dillard University (June).

ASJMC
– Adminstrators met for their conference. Encouraged development officers to come to conference, geared panels to fundraising. Foundations participated.
– Not a large program but talked about fundraising and budget cutting.

NCA
– 2010 Convention in San Francisco (to include: Research in Progress, Virtual Faculty Lounge, Scholars office hours)
– 7700-7800 members.
– 95^th conference. Planned 5 year out program (building history for the 100^th anniversary conference). Recorded sessions through funds from Routledge. History of interpersonal etc.  2014 in Chicago, where NCA started. Centenniel committee.
– 2010 Building Bridges conference in San Francisco. 4800 submissions.
– New strategic plan. Worked with a firm and took 3 years. Online.
– New communication strategies—Spectra is on hiatus and will come out 4 times a year in different format in the Fall. Different kinds of bulletins.
– New system of working committees—leadership, conventions, etc. Spreading the work among members. Staff of 16.
– Virtual faculty lounge. Syllabi, etc. for people who want to share resources.
– Funding 101 Initiative. Preconferences and workshop this summer on funding.
– Card calls—professional development topic. Research board has been sponsoring webinars.
– Scholars Office hours and Round tables of research have been hugely successful

BEA
– Launching the Syllabus Exchange with the Poynter Institute/News U – database of projects, curriculum, teaching tools
– Convention in Las Vegas at the end of the NAB Show
– Focusing on our interest divisions, like documentary, so that they have a crack at greater visibility. This year, there’s an archival story division.
– Had an online journal called Feedback. Put to rest because purpose ended and needed to be updated. Launched new journal, Journal of Media Education, began mid-January 2010, video embedded. Quarterly.
– 1500 members. Developing an international board seat.
– Convention registration numbers are up, as were paper submissions

ABComS:
Overview of the initiative was provided by Patrice Buzzanell and Heather Birks. The project had been put on hold because of economic concerns, assessment of current projects, and strategic planning issues. There had been a meeting with Mike Roloff, Kath Burton, Patrice Buzzanell, and Heather Birks during NCA.

Current Plan: Develop a list of survey questions and categories for the survey before continuing with the project.

ABComS proposed submitting survey questions to CCA member boards for approval prior to sending survey to the membership

Proposed Consultants/Committee: Ford Risley, Journalism Chair at Penn State; Pat Washburn, Ohio University; Bob Avery, Utah; Debbie Andrews, Delaware

New Business:
Fred Blevens elected at the Vice-Chair for CCA

Strategic Planning
– Create a new CCA website and update it regularly  
– Discuss ways to reach high school students
– Provide a listing of useful handbooks and encyclopedias on CCA’s website
– Post Fair Use information – as per ICA
– Share CCA information with members: post on CCA website on member’s websites
– Keep ISI updates on the CCA website

Adjourned. 3 pm                              

 

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