Ohio State's School of Communication #1 in Research Production and #3 Overall in Field

September 28, 2010 - The National Research Council (NRC) has released results of its extensive, five-year study of 83 doctoral programs in the field of communication. The reports reveals The Ohio State University' s School of Communication to be firmly situated among the elite communication programs in the country based on several metrics. The OSU School of Communication faculty achieved an absolute rank of #1 in research activity (e.g., average number of peer-reviewed publications per faculty member). In addition, the School as a whole achieved a #3 ranking in the field based on its achievements along twenty different criteria - these criteria reflected faculty research (e.g., % of faculty with grants), quality of graduate students (e.g., GRE scores), graduate student support (e.g., % of students with full financial support), and a broad range of diversity measures (e.g., % of female faculty, % of female students).

The extensive analyses conducted on the NRC data identified only five programs which could state with 90% certainty that they rank as one of the top 10 programs in the field. Joining OSU's School of Communication on this list are Stanford University's Department of Communication, the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Journalism & Mass Communication, and the Speech Communication program at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign (now the Department of Communication). This is truly elite company and the NRC rankings are a reflection of the significant advancements made by The Ohio State's School of Communication.

It is important to place the NRC rankings in some additional context. The 2010 NRC report is based on data collected only up through the 2005-2006 academic year. OSU's School of Communication has seen its level of research productivity grow exponentially since that time. A quick review of the broad range of works generated by the School 's faculty and graduate students and placed in the field's top peer-reviewed journal outlets offers much hope that the School of Communication is maintaining its steady progress toward becoming the single best place in the country to study communication.

Dr. Kelly Garrett Receives ASCoR Denis McQuail Award 2009

Our fellow COPS member Kelly Garrett was recently awarded the 2009 ASCoR Denis McQuail Award and was named a 2010-2011 ASCoR Honorary Fellow by the Amsterdam School of Communication Research. The award is based on the best research paper advancing communication theory to be published in an international journal in the previous year. An international jury selected Kelly's 2009 paper in the Journal of Communication entitled "Politically motivated reinforcement seeking: Reframing the selective exposure debate" for the award.

Myiah Hutchens Wins "Promising Professors" Competition

Please join me in congratulating COPS' own Myiah Hutchens for winning the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication's Mass Communication & Society division's "Promising Professors" competition. She will receive her Promising Professor award at this August's annual meeting. Myiah will take her new title with her as she begins her assistant professor position at Texas Tech in late August. Congrats Myiah!

Hmielowski to attend NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar

COPS member Jay Hmielowski will be one of 30 communication doctoral students from around the country who will be attending the 2010 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar being held at the University of Utah on July 31-August 2. Jay's proposal, focusing on the role of intra-attitudinal ambivalence in public opinion formation and change, was accepted for presentation after a highly competitive review process. We are proud that Jay will be representing OSU and COPS at the gathering of some of the best young minds in the field. Well done, Jay!

Recent COPS Alumnus Heather LaMarre Inaugural AEJMC Scholar

Congratulations to Heather LaMarre (Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota; PhD, OSU, 2009) for being among the inaugural recipients of the AEJMC Scholars Program. LaMarre's project, "Citizen Journalism and Social Media in the 2010 Election: A Multi-Method Approach to Understanding Emerging Trends and Innovations in Mass Communication Campaigns" has been funded with $2500 through the program.

Myiah Hively Takes Not One, but TWO Top Student Paper Awards at AEJMC

I'm thrilled to share with you that Myiah Hively has won not only the top student paper award in the Mass Communication & Society division for this year's AEJMC conference, but also the top student paper award (i.e., Chaffee-McLeod Award) in the Communication Theory & Methodology division. Terrific work Myiah!

This, combined with the Dylko et al. paper winning a top-3 paper award in the communication technology (CTEC) division and Nori Comello winning a top-3 paper in the CT&M division (giving us 2 of the 3 student paper awards in CT&M this year), means OSU is taking a large bulk of the student paper awards from the relevant divisions this year.

I should also note that this is the third year in a row that a COPS student has won the top paper award in the MC&S division; Chris Shen won the top student paper award in that division two years ago, then a top-3 paper award in the division last year. Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville, and Michael Beam won the top student paper in that division last year, so we had 2 out of the three winners in MC&S last year just as we have 2 of the top three papers in CT&M this year.

So, congratulations to Myiah and all the others who worked hard and produced some terrific papers! We are all very proud of you.

Oh, and by the way, Myiah, Ivan, and Nori will all be on the academic job market this year, so their paper awards are well timed!

Grad Students Earn AEJMC Top 3 Student Paper Award

Four COPS graduate students, Ivan Dylko, Kristen Landreville, Michael Beam, and Nick Geidner, were notified recently that they received a Top 3 Student Paper Award from the Communication Technology Division (CTEC) of the AEJMC. The award-winning paper is entitled, "Gatekeeping and YouTube: News Filters and the Intermedia Dynamic in the Age of User-Generated Content." This paper will be presented in August at the annual meeting of the AEJMC in Boston, MA. Congrats to these graduate students for their fine scholarship. Well done!

Myers, Hayes, win separate ICA paper awards

COPS Ph.D. student Teresa Myers has again won a top student paper prize, this time in the Political Communication division of the International Communication Association 2009. Her paper is titled "Communication and Foreign Policy Opinions: Attention to News, Policy Framing, and Willingness to Engage." At about the same time, I learned that a paper I submitted to the Information Systems division of ICA 2009 with Joerg Matthes of the University of Zurich, "A Primer for Communication Researchers on Probing Interactions in Linear Models, with SPSS and SAS Implementations" placed in the top 4 of that division as well.

Myers wins second MAPOR award

Congratulations to Teresa Myers for winning in the MAPOR Fellows student paper competition for her paper titled "Public Opinion About Public Opinion: An Examination of the Use of Public Opinion Polls as a Normative Political Communication Tool Between the Public and Representatives." This makes the second time Teresa has received a MAPOR student paper award and six consecutive years that an OSU COPS graduate student has placed in the top three in this competition. Good work Teresa!