Educational Administration and Supervision Commons^™

Why Publish?, Goodwin F. Berquist

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines why many trained communication scholars fail to convert research projects into published scholarship. It argues that publishing is essential for advancing knowledge, establishing credibility, and participating fully in the academic profession. The article identifies several barriers to scholarly productivity, including lack of awareness about the value of publication, post-degree burnout, heavy teaching and service demands, weak writing preparation, perfectionism, and misunderstanding the difference between graduate coursework and publishable manuscripts. It emphasizes the role of communication administrators, advisors, and senior scholars in helping graduate students and new faculty understand publication expectations and develop practical writing habits. The article …

Publish What?, William R. Brown

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article addresses the question of what kinds of scholarly work are most suitable for publication in communication studies, with particular attention to the needs of young scholars and those who mentor them. It defines publishable scholarship as “news” for the profession: work grounded in genuine intellectual curiosity, connected to significant conversations in the field, and willing to take calculated risks. The article distinguishes between general qualities of newsworthy research and more specific topics for future inquiry. Its proposed research agenda centers on symbolically negotiated patterns in human communication, including perspective-shifting, infinite regress, hypostatizing, cultural enactment, and learning. These topics …

Publish How?, Dennis S. Gouran

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article provides practical guidance on preparing, submitting, and revising scholarly manuscripts for publication in professional journals in communication studies. Written for graduate students, early-career faculty, and administrators involved in faculty development, it identifies the publication process as an important but often neglected part of graduate training. The article outlines key stages of journal submission, including assessing whether a manuscript offers a meaningful contribution, seeking critical feedback before submission, selecting an appropriate publication venue, following journal style requirements, and preparing a professional cover letter. It also cautions against premature submission, simultaneous submission to multiple journals, and inappropriate communication with editors. …

Evaluating Theatre Technology, Silberstein, Frank Silberstein

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article considers how theatre technology and the work of theatre technologists can be evaluated, particularly when assessment is used to judge the professional performance of technical personnel. It distinguishes the theatre technologist from designers, emphasizing the technologist’s role in devising practical means for achieving production effects and solving technical problems. The article argues that evaluation should account for both administrative competence and production outcomes, including scheduling, budgeting, shop organization, paperwork, safety practices, accident records, workmanship, rigging, structural knowledge, and the efficient use of available resources. It also notes the difficulty of assessing theatre technology from outside the production process, …

Computing Literacy In The University Of The Future, Vernon W. Gantt

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article discusses the anticipated role of computing literacy in higher education during the emerging personal computer era. It distinguishes computing literacy, defined as the ability to use computers and software for practical tasks, from computer literacy, which includes programming and technical understanding of computer operations. The article argues that universities must respond to rapid developments in microcomputer technology and that faculty and administrators risk becoming less technologically capable than their students if they do not acquire basic computing skills. It surveys potential applications of computers in university teaching, research, writing, administration, advising, publishing, libraries, testing, data analysis, and professional …

Civic Virtue And The University Of The Future, Lawrence W. Rosenfield

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This essay considers the future of the university through the relationship between liberal education, civic virtue, and academic governance. It distinguishes the life of the mind from the university as a historical social institution, arguing that higher education has traditionally been tied to the preparation of citizens for public life. The essay traces this civic purpose from Renaissance humanism through American republican educational ideals and the development of public higher education. It identifies the academic department system and campus governance structures as central sites of crisis, rather than treating curricular reform or educational quality debates as the primary issue. The …

Communication At The Center Of Future University Education: Implications For Innovation, John F. Deethardt

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article argues that communication should occupy a central role in future university education, particularly as universities confront complex social and global problems that exceed the boundaries of single disciplines. It critiques academic specialization and the department-based structure of higher education for encouraging disciplinary isolation, fragmented knowledge, and limited institutional capacity for interdisciplinary problem solving. Drawing on literature about interdisciplinarity, group communication, health teams, network analysis, and university reform, the article identifies communication across disciplinary cultures as a primary challenge for innovation. It proposes “interdisciplinary communication” as a future area of study within speech communication and describes a research agenda …

Response To The University Of The Future, Lane Jennings

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This response essay reflects on the future of the university from the perspective of an editor and journalist responding to essays on civic virtue, interdisciplinary communication, and computing literacy. It considers the university both as a civic community and as a looser relationship among teachers, students, and knowledge, drawing comparisons between American residential higher education, medieval universities, and emerging computer-networked instruction. The essay supports the role of universities in preparing students for democratic participation while also warning that new telecommunications technologies may reshape or weaken campus-based community if institutions do not adapt deliberately. It discusses interdisciplinary communication as a way …

The Communication Classroom: A Chilly Climate For Women?, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article responds to research on classroom climate for women by considering how sexism operates specifically within speech communication. It identifies three areas of disciplinary concern: public speaking and debate, public address and rhetoric, and communication as a medium through which discrimination is enacted. The article argues that women’s participation as speakers has historically conflicted with conventional gender expectations, making public speaking and debate especially difficult contexts for women students. It also critiques the teaching of public address, noting that speech anthologies and curricula have often excluded women rhetors and thereby reinforced the idea that public eloquence is primarily male. …

The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One For Women? A Response, Richard D. Rieke

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This response essay addresses sexism in higher education as a deeply embedded cultural pattern that shapes classroom and professional interactions. Responding to work on the “chilly climate” for women, the essay argues that denial is a major barrier to recognizing and changing sexist behavior. It discusses ways male faculty may view women students and colleagues through sexualized or dominance-based assumptions, and it emphasizes that advanced education does not necessarily prevent discriminatory behavior. The essay identifies examples of sexism in classroom interaction, advising, debate, faculty-student relationships, and professional settings, including women’s exclusion from informal academic networks, the dismissal of women’s contributions, …

The Domestic Policy Association: A Test Of Public Communication, David Matthews

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article describes the development of the Domestic Policy Association and its National Issues Forums as a model for public learning and citizen discussion of national policy questions. Originating from a 1981 meeting of civic and educational organizations, the association sought to address public alienation, fragmented civic life, and the gap between citizens and policymakers. The article outlines how participating organizations selected issues with both national and local significance, developed accessible and politically neutral discussion materials, and organized face-to-face forums designed to help participants move beyond initial opinions toward more informed judgments. It also describes the role of the Public …

Joining The Issues: Notes On Public Policy Debate, Robert J. Kingston

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines how public issues can be identified, framed, and discussed in ways that support meaningful public policy debate. It distinguishes casual public talk from deliberative discussion in which citizens weigh policy choices, consider tradeoffs, and move toward informed judgment. The article outlines several indicators for recognizing emerging public issues, including opinion polls, demographic trends, cultural change, geography, and latent public sentiment. It argues that issues suitable for public debate generally affect broad segments of the population, involve moral as well as technical dimensions, reveal differences between expert and public understandings, or arise when the political process has reached …

The National Issues Forum: Bridging The Human Gap Through Innovative Learning, Eva M. Mcmahan

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article presents the National Issues Forum as a model for innovative learning and citizen participation in response to rapid social change and the widening gap between public complexity and citizens’ capacity to address it. Drawing on discussions of the “human gap,” participatory democracy, and the communication era, the article defines innovative learning as a process characterized by anticipation and participation. It argues that National Issues Forums support this process by bringing citizens together to examine public issues, consider multiple viewpoints, identify underlying values, and work toward shared understanding rather than predetermined solutions. The article further proposes that the forum …

Full Circle: The Domestic Policy Association, Annabel Dunham Hagood

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article traces the development of the Domestic Policy Association from early concerns about public deliberation in the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate, and declining trust in government to the first Presidential Library Conference on the Public and Public Policy in 1983. It describes the role of David Mathews, educational institutions, civic organizations, the National Consortium for Public Policy Education, the Johnson Foundation, the Public Agenda Foundation, and the Kettering Foundation in shaping a national network for public policy education. The article explains how the National Issues Forum emerged as a grassroots, non-advocacy model for informed public discussion of domestic issues, …

Keeping Graduate Programs Responsive To National Needs, N. Edd Miller

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Reviews the book "Keeping Graduate Programs Responsive to National Needs," by Michael J. Pelczar and Lewis C. Solman (Eds). Jossey-Bass Publishers. 1984.

Burnout: The New Academic Disease, John E. Buckley

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Reviews the book "Burnout: The New Academic Disease," by Winifred Albizu Melandez and Rafael M. de Guzman. Washington, D.C; Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1983.

Aca News

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Organizational news section reporting activities and decisions of the Association for Communication Administration in 1984–1985. Documents the succession of leadership as a new president assumes office and a president-elect is appointed, outlining their prior roles, responsibilities for national and regional convention programming, and plans for an upcoming annual seminar in Denver. Records the results of a closely contested Executive Committee election, noting high ballot return rates and the administrators elected to replace outgoing members. Provides statistical information on unsolicited manuscript submissions to the ACA Bulletin by topical category, including acceptance and rejection patterns, and lists the referees who contributed to …

Aca At The Regionals

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Organizational news feature detailing Association for Communication Administration sponsorship of administrative programs at several 1985 regional conventions in speech communication and theatre. It outlines ACA panels at the Western Speech Communication Association meeting on administrative concerns, including sessions introducing academic administration careers and debating doctoral versus terminal master’s degrees in theatre. At the Southeastern Theatre Conference, it documents multiple programs on off-campus summer theatre administration, criteria for evaluating creative activity in tenure and promotion, tenuring technical theatre faculty, censorship in college and university theatres, and methods for evaluating theatre training programs. Additional ACA-sponsored sessions at Central States Speech Association, Southern …

The Chief Administrator As Legal Authority, Joan Van Tol

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

The role of the department chair as legal authority in higher education is examined through three major areas of potential liability: academic planning, student-related issues, and employment matters. Academic planning discussions address admissions policies for disabled and disadvantaged students, legal constraints on program elimination during periods of retrenchment, and the contractual force of catalogs and changing degree requirements. Student-focused sections consider the standards for academic and disciplinary dismissal, appropriate responses to disruptive or mentally ill students, and the protection and disclosure of educational records under federal legislation. Employment issues include affirmative action and Title VII obligations in hiring, the contractual …

Department Chairs And The Law, Patti P. Gillespie

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

The contemporary legal environment for department chairs is explored through six recurring areas of risk that shape everyday academic administration in higher education, with special attention to theatre programs. The discussion begins with equal opportunity, discrimination, and affirmative action, emphasizing up-to-date knowledge of policy interpretation, careful drafting of advertisements, equitable salary practices, and meticulous recordkeeping across hiring, promotion, and termination decisions. It then turns to retention, promotion, tenure, and salary, stressing clear written procedures, consistent application, pattern awareness across decisions, and early consultation with university counsel in cases involving dismissal or disclosure of sensitive information. Additional sections examine “truth in …

The Design Of An Internal Resource Allocation Model For Use In Higher Education, Ann Clark

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

A computer model has been developed for the purpose of allocating funds, by department, within a university. This model categorizes each class as one of three types -- lecture, problem solving, or laboratory. A standard class size is assigned to each type -- 40, 25, and 10 respectively. Combining the previous years head count for each class with the credit-hour value of each class, a faculty position count for every department is generated.

Administrative positions, staff positions, operating expense, and operating capital funds are calculated using various combinations of factors involving student credit hours, faculty positions, and class type. Factors …

A Policy Analysis Of The Legal Aspects Of Teaching The Handicapped Child In Physical Education, Ronald K. Hirst

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

Within the last decade, handicapped students were routinely excluded from public schools (Cintron, 1983). Federal and state law now guarantee these children a free, appropriate public education. It is the task of school administrators to develop programs and policy to insure the rights of handicapped children. The goal of this research is to present a legal perspective for the teaching of handicapped children in physical education and offer specific recommendations for the successful implementation of educational programs for the handicapped. A policy analysis was performed with regards to the legal aspects of teaching the handicapped child in physical education with …

12th Annual Seminar: Roles And Powers Of Administrators, James E. Roever

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This introduction presents the theme and structure of a seminar devoted to roles and powers in communication administration. It situates the collected essays, case studies, and discussion reports as resources for examining administrative responsibilities in departments, colleges, and professional settings. The introduction outlines sessions addressing the work of chairs, deans, fellows, and other communication administrators, with attention to leadership, common problems, and the development of administrative skill in speech communication and higher education.

The Flat Earth: Ideas Concerning The Current Financial Situation In Higher Education, J. Robert Wills

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article addresses financial constraint in higher education, with particular attention to communication and arts programs. Using the Flat Earth Society as an opening metaphor, it cautions against relying on outdated assumptions about institutional resources and academic priorities. The article identifies several financial “myths,” including the beliefs that uncommitted money remains available, that existing funds are always spent wisely, that need alone determines resource allocation, and that communication and arts programs face uniquely difficult circumstances. It then lists institutional responses to financial distress, such as program reductions, hiring freezes, increased workloads, and reduced services. The article concludes by urging departments …

Perspective Of A Department With Units In Speech Communication, Theatre, And Mass Communication, Edward J. Pappas

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article describes the organization, advantages, and challenges of a large multidisciplinary communication department at Wayne State University. It situates the department within varied organizational models for communication-related programs at Michigan public universities and outlines the historical development of Wayne State’s combined structure in speech communication, theatre, journalism, radio-television-film, communication disorders, and related areas. The article identifies benefits of the umbrella department model, including enrollment strength, budgetary influence, graduate student teaching opportunities, administrative committees, and interdisciplinary program coordination. It also describes difficulties related to explaining the department’s mission to college administrators, evaluating promotion and tenure across distinct fields, allocating resources …

Theatre Within A Speech-Theatre Department, Carla Waal

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article examines the place of theatre within combined speech and theatre departments, using the Department of Speech and Dramatic Art at the University of Missouri, Columbia as a central example. It outlines the department’s historical development from rhetoric and public speaking, the addition of theatre and radio-television-film, and the effects of housing related areas within one administrative unit. The article describes both the practical advantages of consolidation, including political influence, enrollment strength, service courses, and graduate assistantships, and the challenges of shared governance, budget priorities, facilities, area identity, and administrative responsibility. It also considers whether theatre programs are better …

A Response To Merged Or Independent Departments, Robert K. Tiemens

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

This article responds to arguments about merged and independent department structures in communication-related fields. Drawing on the Department of Communication at the University of Utah, it describes how a formal merger of speech, journalism, speech pathology, and audiology did not immediately create an integrated department, but gradually developed through budget consolidation, shared administrative policies, geographic relocation, and revised leadership roles. The article emphasizes that no single organizational structure suits all institutions and that departments often must adapt to structures shaped by higher administrative decisions. It critiques arguments based mainly on enrollment, required basic courses, public relations, or political influence, and …

Opportunities For Speech Communication Faculty Under Collective Bargaining: Grievance Processing, Marilyn J. Young

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Collective bargaining grievance procedures are presented as an area in which speech communication faculty can apply disciplinary training in argumentation, persuasion, audience analysis, rhetorical analysis, small group communication, and nonverbal communication. The article explains how these skills support grievance work from the initial assessment of a complaint through informal settlement discussions, campus-level meetings, system-level appeals, and binding arbitration. Using the State University System of Florida as an example, it describes faculty grievance processing under a collective bargaining agreement and emphasizes the importance of evidence, argument construction, settlement language, audience adaptation, and communication with both administrators and grievants. The article also …

Lessons From T.H. Gallaudet: Learning About Language And Communication By Teaching Deaf People, James J. Fernandes

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet’s writings on deaf education are presented as early contributions to communication theory and pedagogy. The article connects Gallaudet’s nineteenth-century work on language, signs, meaning, and education to later ideas associated with rhetorical theory, communication instruction, and nonverbal communication. It highlights Gallaudet’s view that language does not contain meaning by itself but prompts understanding through shared experience and interpretation. The article also describes his advocacy for early communication education, child-centered language instruction, and the use of visual-gestural communication to develop expressive skill. Attention is given to the relationship between deaf education and speech communication, including the value of …

A Major In Public And Corporate Communication: Curriculum Development And Implementation At A Small University, William W. Neher, Royce E. Flood

Association for Communication Administration Bulletin

Curriculum development for a public and corporate communication major at Butler University is described as a response to student interest in career-oriented liberal arts education. The article explains how the program combined speech communication, English, journalism, and radio-television coursework to prepare students for public relations, corporate communication, media, and public-sector communication roles. It outlines the influence of public relations education recommendations, community advisory input, and faculty committee planning on the program’s design. The curriculum includes a university core, major requirements across four departments, cognate options in business administration or public affairs, and internship opportunities with communication-related organizations. The article also …