Bryant Department of Communication

The Annual Communication Speaker Series kicked off with a talk by Steve Audette, the award-winning Senior Editor of the PBS series “Frontline” on Monday, April 7, at 7 pm in the Stepan Grand Hall in the Bello Center.

Audette discussed his recent work on “Bush’s War,” the new five hour Frontline documentary airing now on PBS. Using actual video clips from the show, Audette demonstrated his approach to the creative process of editing and how he works with a producer to develop the story into a fully realized program. He also discussed some of the challenges faced by documentary filmmakers who take on politically charged topics.

The theme of this year’s Communication Speaker Series was “Writing: In Word, Image, and Sound.”

Have you ever thought about being a writer or editor? Do you have that novel, poem, or television show inside you, just screaming to get out? Have you ever wanted to write for a magazine or a newspaper or edit a cutting edge documentary? Ever dreamed about having millions of people read your words on the Web or watch your show on television?

This past spring’s Communication Speaker Series was your chance to find out what it’s like! Five distinguished and successful writers and editors visited Bryant over the course of four weeks. The Bryant community and the public were invited to hear what they had to say about the future of writing and editing (in all its forms).

Other events included:

Tuesday, April 15
Tim Wilson, News editor Boston Herald
4:30 to 6 pm South Dining Hall

Thursday, April 17
Erin Dionne, Young successful novelist
4:30 to 6 pm Unistructure 275

Wednesday, April 23
Bob Gulla, Successful online and print magazine writer, specializing in popular music.
9 to 11 am MRC Dining Room

Thursday, May 1
Tom Chandler Poet and recently Rhode Island’s Poet Laureate
4:30 to 6 pm Amica Career Center Conference Room.

Professor Wendy Samter was elected Editor of Communication Research Reports, a journal which publishes short, empirical pieces on a wide variety of topics pertaining to human communication, including studies of small group, relational, political, persuasive, organizational, nonverbal, mass, interpersonal, intercultural, instructional, health, aging/life span, family, and computer mediated communication.   Communication Research Reports is published by the Eastern Communication Association, an affiliate of the discipline’s largest association The National Communication Association.  Two Bryant students, Laurie Barber and Angela Floro, are serving as Professor Samter’s Editorial Assistants

Bryant University will be hosting the 2008 International Conference on Relationship Research. The International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) seeks to stimulate and support the scientific study of personal relationships and encourage cooperation among social scientists worldwide. IARR has approximately 700 active members representing a wide range of disciplines, including communication, counseling, education, family studies and child development, gerontology, human sciences, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. IARR is an international organization and makes a practice of holding its biennial conference in locations around the world; the 2006 conference was held on the island of Crete in Greece. IARR draws members from numerous countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, the Dominican Republic, England, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Africa, The Netherlands, the United States, and Wales. The Westin Hotel in Providence will host the conference. Wendy Samter is the Local Arrangements Chair.  Drs. Kevin Pearce and Kristen (Bryant), Chris Morse (Penn State University) and Rich West (Emerson College) are members of the Local Arrangements Committee.

Sophomore Bryant Ko presented a paper at the annual conference of the National Association of Broadcasters/Broadcast Educators of America in Las Vegas this April. Other presenters included Professor Tom Dooley (Communication), and several dedicated members of the Instructional Technology Department including Dan Greene, Phil Lombardi, and Jason Gregg. The paper traced the development and use of media technology at Bryant.

Graduating Senior Laurie Barber presented a paper at the International Communication Association in Montreal in May. Co-authored with Professor Kevin Pearce (Communication), the paper explored perceptions of professors who appear on Facebook. The paper grew out of a project Laurie did in Professor Pearce’s Research Methods class.