"Apprenticeship teaching and research activities that, under faculty mentorship, provide progressively increasing levels of responsibility are effective ways to teach graduate students how to teach and conduct independent research."
—Association of American Universities' Committee on Graduate Education, October 1998
Collaborative Research
In addition to the research that students conduct as part of class assignments, collaborative research is often available with faculty members. Such opportunities are valuable learning experiences for students plus they often produce publications that enhance a student's vita when entering the job market.
For the last three years, Assistant Professor Terry Kinney has had teams of three or four graduate students working with him examining hate speech. Funded by the Otto Bremer Foundation, the Hate Speech Project has conducted focus groups with high school and college students to discover examples of what students think about hate speech, types of hate speech, and the effects of the messages. After having received training, graduate students have had hands-on opportunities to conduct focus groups, transcribe tapes, and develop coding schemes. These research projects have resulted in conference participations that involved graduate students Jennifer Charpentier and Laura Jacobi.
Another collaborative research project investigates the media's potential influence on television consumer's communication attitudes and behaviors, from which two manuscripts are currently being prepared for publication by Kinney and graduate student Kristen Eis.
Professor Dean Hewes is co-authoring a book chapter with graduate students Karyl Daughters and Pam Cox-Otto that discusses theories of cognitive architecture, specifically modularity, used in interpersonal communication contexts. This book chapter will be followed up with an extensive study to be conducted by Hewes, Daughters, and Eis. This study focuses the cognitive, evolutionary, and cultural determinants of information seeking in dating.
Assitant Professor Ascan Koerner works with graduate students on research in family and interpersonal communication. Koerner and graduate student Manako Fujiwara presented a study that compared relationship models of Japanese and Americans at the National Communication Association conference in Seattle. In another project, Koerner and Eis investigated the role of conformity orientation on family communication patterns which led to a conference presentation at National Communication Association conference in Atlanta.
Professor Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and doctoral student Sang-Chul Lee co-authored an article published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech on the inaugural address of Republic of Korea President Roh Tae-woo. Lee began work on the address in a rhetorical criticism seminar with Campbell and they jointly formed it into an essay using this speech to illustrate the impact of political change on the rhetoric of presidents.
A group of ten graduate students and Professor Edward Schiappa released a report in October 1998 called Squeeze Play: The Campaign for a New Twins' Stadium The report was the product of a two-quarter research seminar in which various aspects of the campaign were analyzed including media coverage, PR strategy, and grassroots opposition.
A grant of $91,000 from Minnesota Technologies, Inc. funds the work of Professor Amy Sheldon and her co-principal investigator, Dr. Joan Bachenko, VP for research at Linguistics Technologies, Inc., a local medical transcription company. They are working with a research team composed of graduate and undergraduate students. This team is analyzing speech errors and filled pauses in verbal reports of patient chart records. Their goal is to create speech recognition software that will help to automate the transcription of patient records. They are also looking at possible influences from social characteristics (of patients or doctors), such as gender, on how the patient records are constructed as a text.
In a cooperative project with the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, a team of five graduate students was assigned to monitor five Twin City TV channels' coverage of the 1998 gubernatorial races. Monitoring was conducted from late August until early November.
Professor Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and then doctoral student Angela Ray co-authored a chapter for a volume of The History of U.S. Public Address to be published by Michigan State University Press. Ray's contributions to the chapter emerged from a paper she wrote on some of Victoria Clafin Woodhull's speeches for Dr. Campbell's rhetorical criticism seminar and from earlier work she had done on Francis and Virginia Minor. Angela's fine work was incorporated with some of Dr. Campbell's work on Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage into the chapter on the impact of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments. Ray finished her Ph.D. on a Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship.
Independent Research
Although collaborative research opportunities abound, the Communication Studies department also makes a strong commitment to support students' independent research. For instance, the department regularly provides funds for graduate students to travel to national and regional academic conferences to present their research. Additionally, the department sponsors a number of financial awards to support individual research projects.
Interdisciplinary Studies
Graduate students in Communication Studies also find support for their research in some of the University of Minnesota's other fine programs.
In the area of Communication Theory, we have connections with the Psychology Department, the faculty associated with the doctoral minor in Interpersonal Relationships Research, and the Center for Cognitive Sciences.
In the area of Rhetorical Studies, we have connections with the Rhetoric Department, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and Feminist Studies.