UCF well-represented at Florida Communication Association Convention

The Florida Communication Association’s (FCA) annual convention was held at the Four Points by Sheraton Studio City in Orlando this past October. The Nicholson School of Communication (NSC) was well represented at the convention by students and faculty.

NSC undergraduate students demonstrated their engagement in clubs and research during the convention through poster sessions and a roundtable. Officers and members from Lambda Pi Eta (LPE) presented a poster about the UCF LPE chapter and were involved in a roundtable discussion with the LPE officers from the Rollins College chapter. The roundtable provided them with an opportunity to collaborate on projects designed to improve recruitment, engagement and the overall organization of the chapters. Sydney Gray, Alex Jacobs, Jessica Monteagudo, Amanda Palmeira and Laura Carolina Ramirez represented the UCF LPE chapter well by explaining the challenges and opportunities of recruiting from a larger population of students. Laura Carolina Ramirez also presented a poster at the convention based on her Honors In the Major thesis.

One of the newest NSC clubs, HerCampus, was also represented at the FCA convention. Interpersonal-Organizational student Nicholas Osler, the Editor-in-Chief of HerCampus, presented a poster that highlighted the strengths of the organization and he discussed how social media has changed the way student clubs operate.

At this year’s FCA convention, NSC graduate students presented work based on papers from their graduate courses. During the poster session, Julie Antos presented “A Textual Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Tyler Clementi” and George Colangelo presented “What He Did for Love: The Method and Value of the Lifehistory Interview.” In addition, Diana Taha presented a paper about the influence of social media in student involvement in social and political causes.

The NSC was also well represented by faculty members from the interpersonal-organizational communication program. Shari Hodgson, Stephan Ihde, Gino Perrotte and Christine Hanlon presented challenges and solutions for faculty who teach large lecture communication courses. Additionally, Christine Hanlon presented a paper titled “Convention: Tweeps: (De)Constructing Twitter as a Professional Tool.” As the current President of FCA, Hanlon organized this year’s convention and will be the Past-President of the organization for 2013.