Christian Spielvogel received his Ph.D. degree in 2003. He is currently employed as an Associate Professor of Communication at Hope College in Holland, MI. Dr. Spielvogel is married to Laurie Spielvogel, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, at Western Michigan University. They have three children: Drew (8), Elena (6), and Sean (2). They recently returned from a year-long sabbatical at the University of Virginia, where Dr. Spielvogel received a fellowship from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop a simulation on Civil War rhetoric and history. They successfully piloted the simulation in a history course at PSU this past summer, and he gave a nationally televised talk on C-SPAN2 about the project. (9/8/09)
Dale Cyphert received her Ph.D. degree in 1998. She is currently employed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Management at the University of Northern Iowa. Dale is still a PSU football fan. She still goes to every metal concert that comes to town. Her son lives in Washington DC and she has a, happy, healthy guy, who has been her long-time significant other. She is currently researching discourses of rural entrepreneurship. (9/8/09)
Brian Ott received his Ph.D. degree in 1997. He was recently promoted to the rank of Professor at Colorado State University. He also just recently published a book, Critical Media Studies: An Introduction (Wiley-Blackwell), with Robert Mack. He is the current Editor of the Western Journal of Communication. (9/8/09)
G. Mitchell Reyes received his Ph.D. degree in 2004. He is currently employed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. He focuses his research in two general areas – public memory, and the political impact of science and mathematics. His current book project focuses on the history of the slavery reparations debate and the implications of that debate for race relations in the United States. He has published his research in many of the quarterly journals for academic research in communication studies, including Rhetoric Review, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and The International Journal of the Humanities. He is Director for the Center for Public Memory and Ethnic Studies. (9/8/09)
Craig Fowler received his Ph.D. degree in 2005. He is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at California State University, Fresno. He is especially interested in three areas of study within Interpersonal Communication: Communication and aging, Communication in intergenerational relationships, and Communication in families. Currently, he is focusing on how older parents and their children communicate about caregiving. Recently, Dr. Fowler published an article in Health Communication, coauthored with Carla Fisher. (9/8/09)
Roger Stahl received his Ph.D. degree in 2004. He is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia where he teaches and studies in the fields of rhetoric and media. He published his first book entitled Militainment, Inc. in 2009. He is married to Kate Morrissey, a match made in the Penn State CAS program. They live amongst the Southern-fried bohemia of Athens, GA, in a round house in the woods.
Kara Laskowski received her Ph.D. degree in 2006. After teaching at Juniata College for 4 years (99-03) while doing doctoral coursework, she was hired as a tenure-track faculty member at Shippensburg University in August 2003. She was elected interim chair in January 2008 and then chair in May 2008 of the Department of Human Communication Studies, and was awarded tenure and promotion in September 2008. Kara and her spouse, Adam Nonemaker, live near Shippensburg with children – Samuel and Emelie – and as a family, they are avid kayakers and hikers. Kara has articles forthcoming in Names: A Journal of Onomastics, The Pennsylvania Communication Annual, and several chapters in print, as well as fairly extensive conference activity. She is currently researching the communication identity functions of “trail names” among thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail.
Tara McManus received her Ph.D. degree in 2008. She is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Brad Vivian received his Ph.D. degree in 2001. After teaching at Vanderbilt University, he is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. He is the author of Being Made Strange: Rhetoric beyond Representation (SUNY, 2004) and Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again (Penn State Press, forthcoming, 2010). He is married to a fellow PSU and CAS alum, Anne Demo, and is enjoying life with his young son. (9/11/09)
Heather Norton received her Ph.D. degree in 2005. She is currently employed as an Associate Professor of Communication Studies, and Chair of the Department of English and Communication Studies at Fontbonne University. She is reviving her research on the contemporary militias as the groups again make a resurgence, and she is also writing about the temperance movement during prohibition. (9/11/09)
Khadidiatou Ndiaye received her Ph.D. degree in 2008. She is an an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Her research centers on issues of culture, health, and international communication. She explores how culture impacts the fundamental understanding of health as well as individual and community behaviors. (9/11/09)
Jennifer Borda received her Ph.D. degree in 2002. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the University of New Hampshire in 2008. This year, she had essays published in Communication Quarterly, Feminist Media Studies, and she has an essay forthcoming next year in Text and Performance Quarterly. Her book, titled Union Girls on Film: Representations of Labor & Feminist Political Activism in Mainstream and Independent Cinema, which was based on her dissertation, will be published by McFarland Press next year. She is currently working on a new book project titled “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .”: Post-feminism and Its Discontents in Twenty-first Century Cultural Discourse, as well as co-editing an anthology Motherhood 2.0: Communication, Consumerism, and Mothering in the Twenty-first Century with Anne Demo and Charlotte Krolokke in which she also will contribute a chapter on the rhetorical evolution of motherhood advice literature. (9/14/09)
After graduating from PSU in the summer of 2006, Dave Tell spent one year as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland. In 2007, he became an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. He is currently writing a book on the rhetoric of public confession in twentieth-century America. He lives in Lawrence, KS with his wife Hannah and their two kids, Jack and Ashlyn. (9/14/09)
Jennifer Young Abbott received her Ph.D. degree in 2003. She is employed as an Associate Professor and Chair of Rhetoric at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN. Jennifer is married to Michael Abbott, Associate Professor of Theater at Wabash College, and they have a daughter named Zoe (nearly 2). She is returning from a year-long sabbatical during which she pursued research interests in the rhetoric of sentimentalism as well as in the connections between democracy, the liberal arts, and public speaking. She is enjoying being back on campus when she is not at home watching Yo Gabba Gabba! with her daughter. (9/15/09)Drop us a note and let us know what is going on!
