Ongoing Faculty Research

Dr. Mary Banwart
  • Attitudes toward women running for political office
  • Communication strategies of candidates in mixed-gender races
  • Reactions to political campaign advertisements
  • Development of the Political Interpersonal Communication Index
  • Debatestyles of candidates in mixed-gender political debates
  • Webstyles of candidates in mixed-gender political races

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Dr. Nancy Baym
  • Changing dynamics and role in fan/band/label relationships given the rise of fan activity on the internet
  • Relationships in social network sites, particularly around music

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Dr. Kristine Bruss
  • Classical rhetoric
  • Speechwriting
  • History of rhetoric education
  • Public speaking pedagogy

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Dr. Jay Childers
  • Public Sphere Theory
  • Deliberative Democracy
  • Civic Engagement
  • Presidential Rhetoric

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Dr. Suzy D'Enbeau
  • Feminist organizational identity construction in a competitive marketplace
  • The rewards and challenges of work-life-family intersections
  • Discursive constructions of gender, empowerment, and identity in local, national, and transnational contexts


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Dr. Jeffrey Hall
  • Gender and friendship expectations
  • Homophobia and masculinity
  • Courtship and flirting, including online courtship
  • Romantic couples' use of humor

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Dr. Mary Lee Hummert
  • Social cognitive processes in interpersonal communication, with an emphasis on the relationship between age stereotypes and communication.
  • Implicit age stereotyping and self-stereotyping processes as an influence on communication and health.
  • The role of age stereotypes in family communication and workplace communication.
  • Cultural influences on age and communication.

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Dr. Adrianne Kunkel
  • New theoretical and methodological directions in the study of close relationships
  • Identity goals and romantic relationship (re)definition
  • Breast cancer support groups
  • Social support and coping
  • Sex and gender differences and similarities
  • Sexual harassment and violence intervention

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Dr. Beth Innocenti
  • Argumentation theory, particularly normative pragmatic theories.
  • History of rhetorical theories, particularly 18th-century theories.
  • American public address, particularly Abraham Lincoln's rhetoric.

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Dr. Donn Parson
  • Argument, Problems of Tropes, and the efforts of Kenneth Burke
  • Work on a recently discovered manuscript of a conversation between Kenneth Burke and Richard McKeon

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Dr. Dorthy Pennington
  • Mediation and memory in the rhetoric of Condoleezza Rice. A paper from this body of research garnered a top paper award at the 2008 NCA Convention
  • Identity mediation and diunitality in the rhetoric of Barack Obama
  • Social movements in African American communication and diaspora studies
  • Racial identity and power
  • Theoretical constructs and applications in interracial communication-book manuscript completed; in search of a publisher

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Dr. Robert C. Rowland
  • “Menachem Begin and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”  In Press in the Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. 
  • “Organizational apologia: The rhetoric of inter-organizational conflict,” 2nd author with Angie Jerome, in press at Western Journal of Communication.
  • Democracy is Not a Fragile Flower:  Ronald Reagan at Westminster and the End of the Cold War, in press at Texas A & M Press, first author with John Jones.
  • “The Enlightenment Roots of Obama’s New Politics,” under review Alta proceedings.
  • “Purpose, Argument Fields, and the Problem of Expertise,” under review Alta proceedings. 
  • “The Fierce Urgency of Now,” under review at American Behavioral Scientist.
  • “One Dream:  Barack Obama, Race, and the American Dream,” under review at Rhetoric and Public Affairs, first author with John Jones.
  • “Conflicting Rhetorical Trajectories in Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address,” under review at the Quarterly Journal of Speech, second author with John Jones.

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Dr. Tracy Russo
  • Student expectations of full-time professional work:
    Student reports of their work values
    Student reports of the trust they expect to have for supervisors and coworkers when they enter the workforce
    Comparisons of student work values and those of older workers
  • Student expectations of teachers and the learning process, particularly focusing on how these may influence their responses to training, information seeking and feedback in the workplace
  • Millennial differences in the workplace: evaluating the extent to which Millennial workers are like and different from workers from other generations; the role of life stage; the role of other demographics and individual differences
  • Organizational identification and commitment

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Dr. Dave Tell
  • Foucault
  • Confession
  • Contemporary theory
  • Rhetorics of space/place


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Dr. Alesia Woszidlo
  • Dr. Alesia Woszidlo is an interpersonal communication scholar who focuses primarily on family communication, mental health, and nonverbal behavior. With regard to family communication, she examines the family of origin and how it affects the communication patterns used in family, romantic, and social relationships. Her research also investigates the associations between various mental health and psychosocial problems (e.g., anxiety, depression, stress, and negative affectivity), communication processes and relationship quality (e.g., satisfaction, commitment, and divorce proneness). Last, Dr. Woszidlo enjoys researching nonverbal behaviors, especially touch, and how it communicates different relational stages and relationship satisfaction. Additionally, she examines various individual traits (e.g., personality and gender) and their effects on how people communicate through touch.


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Dr. Yan Bing Zhang
  • Dr. Yan Bing Zhang's research focuses on communication and intergroup/intercultural relations with a particular interest in age and cultural groups. She is interested in the ways in which our cognitive (e.g., stereotypes), societal and cultural (e.g., attitudes and values), and institutional (e.g., mass media) representations of groups relate to communication processes and relational outcomes.
  • Personal and mediated contact, interpersonal solidarity, cultural stereotypes, and intercultural relations
  • Ethnic identity, self-construal, cultural values, and interpersonal conflict management styles
  • Age stereotypes, culture, media, and intergenerational communication
  • Shared family identity, cultural values, and intergenerational family conflict
  • Aging, cultural values, and advertising
  • Communicative dimensions of cultural salience and attitudes

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