Each year, at least one graduate student capstone from the Communication and Leadership graduate program is submitted and accepted into the Eastern Communication Association (ECA) Conference.  These papers are accepted using a blind peer review process; students compete with professors and other graduate students from across the northeast United States

Last year, Irma Tyszko’s paper was submitted and selected. She wrote her paper on Intercultural Communication, Competence, Intercultural Willingness to Communicate and Intercultural Communication Apprehension in Superior Subordinate Relationships.

This year, two student graduate capstone papers are accepted and will be presented at ECA, Ashley Lipka ’16 and Matt Gorczyca ’15. Ashley wrote her paper on The Use of Social Media in Non-Profit Organizations: Online Community Building and its Impact on Philanthropic Giving. Matt wrote his paper on The New Face of Philanthropy: The Role of Intrinsic Motivation in Millennials’ Attitudes and Intent to Donate to Charitable Organizations.

Ashley and Matt will be presenting on the same panel at the 2016 ECA conference in April.  The success of Communication and Leadership students at this conference demonstrates a strong, continued student-faculty collaboration in the program capstone.

Submitted by: Sara Morris, PhD, associate vice president, academic affairs

Poetry by Janet McNally ’02, assistant professor of English and creative writing, was chosen for  inclusion on the Academy of American Poets’ National Poetry Month poster. The poster is sent out to 120,000 bookstores, libraries and teachers across the country. McNally’s line of poetry, If you believe in snow, you have to believe, from her poem “Maggie Says There’s No Such Thing as Winter,” is featured among such great poets as Adrienne Rich, Ellen Bass, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins and T.S. Eliot.

Submitted by: Public Relations