TMU 8(10), September 20, 2011

Olson receives top national honors. Senior Journalism - Public Relations and Advertising major Kelsie Olson has been awarded the PRSSA National Gold Key Award. The award  recognizes top students who have demonstrated "outstanding academic excellence in public relations and leadership qualities." This is the highest individual award in PRSSA. As a leader in Maverick PR, Olson helped offer a successful regional conference in April. She also has been a student athlete on the UNO Tennis team. She will be presented with the award at an Oct. 17 dinner during the national conference in Orlando, Fla.

Reilly publishes new book. Associate Professor Hugh Reilly will be on a book tour promoting his new book. Bound to Have Blood focuses on how 19th Century newspaper reporting influenced views about the conflict between the United States government and Native Americans. Reilly studied events between 1862 and 1891. Reilly's book tour includes a stop at Bookworm, 8702 Pacific, Oct. 16 at 2 p.m. A paperback edition of the book also is being released in October.

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Next issue: The Terrific Ten

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Allens share their Oman experience.  Associate Professor Chris Allen and spouse Elaine are blogging from Oman, their home for the next 10 months. Allen's  visiting professorship, which includes teaching graduate students, is being funded by a Fulbright award. The Allens have been blogging about adjusting to daily life in Muscat, Oman, as well as the teaching assignment at Sultan Qaboos University.


New Masters of Arts. Tara Doughty Aug. 3 defended her thesis, "So That We Can All Fly: A Rhetorical Examination of a Post Racial Society and Its Perfect Candidate Barack Obama." Assistant Professor Lynnette Leonard directed the thesis. *** Andrea Iaccheri (photo) defended her thesis, "iPillowTalk: A Mixed-Methodological Exploration of How Married Couples Use and Experience Mobile Communication Technology to Communicate In Marriage." Iaccheri studied discourse in mobile text communication and found that the technology is used for shared experiences, ease of use, location, and voicing disagreements. Assistant Professor Adam Tyma chaired the committee, and Assistant Professor Paige Toller also served on the thesis committee.

Excellence in action. UNO Communication graduate students Henry Nixon and  Cameron Logsdon received Graduate College funding to present research at the National Communication Association (NCA) meeting this November in New Orleans. *** Faculty nominated college Student Advisory Committee members: Tunette Powell from speech communication and Emily Johnson from mass communication. They will meet with Dean Gail F. Baker to provide feedback on the undergraduate student experience in the College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media. *** Chin-Chung Chao has been selected to fill Cynthia Robinson's seat on the UNO Faculty Senate.  Robinson stepped down to serve as interim chair of the Department of Black Studies. *** Isaacson Professor Bruce Johansen published a letter in the Aug. 6 issue of The Progressive. In it, he linked coal mining to global warming. *** Lecturer Rita Shaughnessy successfully completed quality service-learning training.  

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Nick Freeman filed this report for The Omaha News

Events and photos. Associate Professor Teresa Trumbly Lamsam, visiting at the University of Kansas, and Rhonda LeValdo, journalism instructor at Haskell Indian Nations University,  presented a workshop in July at the American Indian Journalists Association conference in Ft Lauderdale, Fla. The workshop focused on new ideas for news coverage of Type 2 diabetes in Indian Country. Lamsam and  LeValdo also presented the results of a pilot study on mainstream newspaper coverage of diabetes in Indian Country for the past 15 years. Lamsam's paper, “A Cultural Contracts Perspective: Examining American Indian Identity Negotiations in Academia,” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cultural Diversity: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Lamsam found that education has played a central role in identity confusion used to assimilate American Indians. For those American Indians who persist through doctoral degrees and enter academe, resisting assimilation is especially risky and often tiresome. In this conceptual exploration of identity, Cultural Contracts theory serves to illuminate the path of the American Indian academic journey. *** Associate Professor and Graduate Chair Barb Pickering presented a paper co-authored with Assistant Professor Adam Tyma. "From Wisconsin to Libya (and points in between): Media, Politics, and the New Spectacle" at the Alta Argumentation conference in Salt Lake City in September. The paper was accepted for  publication in the conference proceedings.

Wendy Townley and Gail F. Baker

at the UNO PRSSA Ethics Discussion

(Photo by Ed Watkins)

UNO Forensics hosted a fundraiser at Noodles 

Jerilyn Kamm teaches graphic design 
and advertising in the new iMac lab

Jeremy Lipschultz joined about 400 at UNO and

participated in a transportation planning meeting

Senior Visiting Scholar Jiankang Zhang examined the

University of Chicago Chinese book collection

Alumna Joan Lukas and Jeremy Lipschultz

participated in the 2011 Omaha Creative UnConference

Jerilyn Kamm demonstrated the iPad as an instructional
tool recently at the part-time faculty meeting
(Photo by Sherrie Wilson)

UNO students, faculty and staff enjoyed pleasant fall

weather for the state of the 2011-12 academic year 

The calendar.

September

19   -  Ad Club, Criss Library Theater, 5:30 p.m.


30 - Maverick PR 8th Annual La Notte Italiana Benefit Dinner and Silent Auction, All Saints Episcopal Social Hall, 9302 Blondo St., 6-9 p.m.