Minutes of 11-22-02
MINUTES
The National Communication Association’s
Group Communication Division
2002 Annual Business Meeting
New Orleans, November 22, 2002
1. Welcome and Call to Order (Dennis Gouran)
The fifth annual meeting of the Group Communication Division was called to order by the chair, Dennis Gouran. Thirty-three people in attendance signed the roster.
2. Approval of Minutes for November 2, 2001 (Dale Brashers). A motion was passed to accept the minutes as distributed.
3. Chair's Report (Dennis Gouran)
Dennis Gouran attended the Legislative Council (LC) meetings on behalf of the Division. There was a motion approved to allow the NCA Executive Director to confer emeritus member status. Taylor and Francis is the new publisher for NCA journals. The journals will be available on-line through Taylor and Francis and through EBSCO. Judy Trent raised the issue in LC about what should be done if the current constitutional amendment (e.g., changes to LC) fail on a vote of the membership. It was suggested that the amendment could be resubmitted, it could be broken into separate amendments and resubmitted, or it might be dropped. Further discussion will be held on the Saturday LC meeting.
4. Vice-Chair's Report (Renée Meyers)
A total of 9 panels were sponsored by the Division at the New Orleans Convention. A total of 13 papers and 4 panel submissions were received. Ten papers and 3 panels were competitively selected. We need to work on increasing the number of submissions
The Division would like to thank Michael Holmes, Dawna Ballard, Tim Kuhn, Charles Pavitt, and Sunwolf for their diligent work as reviewers.
The Top Student Paper Award and Top Three Paper Award was given to
Yan Xu (University of Southern California) for "A Structural Equations Analysis of the Transactive Memory Model."
Top Three Paper Awards were given to
Sunwolf (Santa Clara University) and Laura Leets (Stanford University) for "Being Left Out: Communicating Group Boundaries and Resisting Inclusion Attempts in Childhood Peer Groups."
C. Arthur Van Lear (University of Connecticut), Robert A. Walker (Rhode Island College), Megan A. Sheehan (University of Connecticut), and Lesley A. Withers (Central Michigan University) for "AA Online: The Enactment of Supportive Computer-Mediated Communication."
The Division awards committee was chaired by Michele Jackson. The 2002 Dennis Gouran Research Article/Book Chapter Award was awarded to Renée Meyers, Dale Brashers, and Jennifer Hanner for "Majority/minority influence: Identifying argumentative patterns and predicting argument-outcome links" published in Journal of Communication, Autumn, 2002.
The 2002 Laura Crowell Dissertation/Thesis Award was awarded to Isabel Botero for her thesis "Effects of leadership and task demonstrability on information repetition in decision-making groups."
There was no book award this year because there were no nominations. There was some discussion about how to increase nominations. Ideas included send an e-mail to members listed on website and encourage self-nominations.
5. Vice-Chair Elect's Report (Randy Hirokawa)
The 2003 convention will be planned by Randy Hirokawa for our division. It will be around the 25th of November at the Miami Fountainbleu. The 2004 conference will be in Chicago. Program proposals will be submitted on-line (papers will be submitted on-line the following year). Papers this year should be sent to Randy by e-mail as a .pdf or .rtf file. Everyone who submits a paper or proposal must register to receive a tracking number. There is an orientation to the system available at the AllAcademic.com booth. Reviewers will submit reviews on-line. The deadline for the division is Feb. 15th at 11:59 CST. The theme of the conference is "Reaching Out: Reaching In."
There was some discussion about whether we should accept extended abstracts to encourage more submissions. It was decided that we should look into the logistics of submitting abstracts (i.e., with the new on-line submission system) and discuss this further at a later date.
6. Election of Officers for 2002-2003 (Joann Keyton)
The Nominating Committee presented a slate of candidates for open positions and accepted nominations from the floor. The following slate of candidates was voted by the membership:
Vice Chair Elect: Craig Scott
Awards Committee: Tim Kuhn
Nominating Committee: Lisa Millhous, Dawna Ballard
Paper Readers for the 2003 Conference: Randy Hirokawa (as Vice Chair), Verna Corgan, Jennifer Jones Corley, Debra Hoover, Michael Kramer, Lyn van Swol, Bolanle Olaniran, Kathleen Propp, and Sandra Ketrow.
Webmaster: Lisa Millhous
7. Old Business: None
8. New Business
Scott Poole reported on his work as chair of the Research Board. The Education, Publications, and Research Boards are working together on a project to develop sample syllabi from a variety of interest areas. A motion was passed to develop a group communication syllabus to contribute. A committee was formed to develop a sample syllabus. Joann Keyton, Nancy Wyatt, and Renée Meyers will work on that committee.
An interdisciplinary conference based on an association of group scholars is working to put together a conference. There was a motion passed that we participate in this effort.
No other new business noted and the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Dale Brashers, secretary (term to 11-02)
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign,
dbrasher@uiuc.edu