Paxman wins 2019 Outstanding Journal Award
By Emily Schmidt
University Communications Student Assistant
studentpio@minotstateu.edu
MINOT, N.D. – Christina Paxman, Minot State University broadcasting and professional communication assistant professor, won the 2019 Outstanding Journal Award from The Central States Communication Association, the fourth-largest academic communication association in the world.
The articles in the award-winning volume discuss digital civility, analyze the 2016 Iowa Caucus presidential candidates’ tweets, and use a Saturday Night Live sketch to observe a speech’s audience adaptation.
“We published a really fun exercise that was about the Saturday Night Live parody of Sean Spicer who was White House Press Secretary who by most people's accounts didn’t do that well as a speaker. Speaking is central to the field of communication, so I might talk about that in COMM 110, public speaking,” she said. “It’s just a light-hearted, funny way of still being able to teach. Here’s how we do it, working backwards from a poor example of audience adaptation on through how do we successfully do this.”
On top of teaching at Minot State, Paxman is serving her second year as the editor of the Journal of the Communication, Speech & Theatre Association of North Dakota. As part of her position’s research fulfillment, Paxman supervises a board of 15 reviewers who review research, teaching exercises, and undergraduate papers from students and professors in communications and theater fields throughout the United States.
Paxman constantly updates her classroom activities with the newest research, her main field of study.
“I have certainly referenced articles in the classroom when we talk about these very topics. I can say, well there’s research on this area; here's what it says,” said Paxman. “I spent an extra year of my doctoral program so I could be trained in both qualitative and quantitative research methods for the sake of conducting research myself, but where I really see that paying off now is a lot on this other side of the coin as far as serving as an editor. That’s where it comes into play for me, really helping me stay current and active as researcher as part of the field of communication and keeping those conversations going with other scholars throughout the field.”
This is something she loves about her career.
“I love that the field is always growing and changing. We have a lot of variety in our field. We have the ability in our discipline to study everything from social media to health communication, so I think one benefit of our department is that we offer so many different courses that really help prepare students for a variety of different careers. What's always fun and exciting is seeing them go on with the skillset to so any number of things after college.”
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| Published: 09/27/19 |
