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08/20/2008

Intercultural Interest Group August 2008 Newsletter


2009 Saint Louis, MO
March 31-April 5, 2009 Convention Theme
Conversations about Connections:
Gateway to Communication at the "Heart of it All"

Intercultural Communication Educators, Practitioners, Scholars, and/or Students

Summer Greetings!!! I hope your summer has been enjoyable, safe, and productive.

This is our second newsletter!!!

The first newsletter included explanations of program format possibilities, such as competitive papers, roundtable, debate, spotlight, performance, senior scholar roundtable, etc. If you missed the first one and/or would like to refresh your memory on the content, please contact me. I will send it to you via email.

Dr. Beck (2009 CSCA Convention Planner/First Vice-President) sent an email message to all unit planners on August 13th. The message included updates and reminders which I will briefly share with you later in this newsletter. The message was entitled, "Only Seven Weeks until October 1!" Reading the title, I giggled because of her "direct" reminder. Then, as my smile quickly faded away, I said, "Wow." I went on, "Yikes! October 1 is coming up pretty soon!!!" Yes, October 1 is the deadline for submitting papers and panel proposals for CSCA. I would like to extend Dr. Beck's reminder to you all. As I look at my calendar, I became giddy with nervous anticipation. I am excited and looking forward to receiving your papers and panel proposals and working with you all to make this convention memorable!!!  

In this newsletter, I am going to:  

Dr. Beck's Update

Dr. Beck reports, "In fairness to all of our association members, it makes sense for the number of panel slots to roughly correspond to the current number of members that affiliated with a particular unit." Dr. Beck explains that the majority of planning units will have almost the same number of panel slots. She continues, "However, a few units will note a more significant change." I am hoping that our interest group is not one of them. I will report you the exact number as soon as I receive the information. On accepting paper and panels, Dr. Beck warns the unit planners:

Obviously, quality remains our top concern. If you do not receive adequate submissions to support the assigned number of panel slots, please do not accept papers or panels that do not meet the standards of your planning unit and our association. Conversely, if you receive a large number of submissions . . . please feel free to submit alternates in the event that another unit does not use all of its assigned panel slots.

Our interest group's and my goal is to fill our assigned slots with quality papers and panels. I highly encourage you to submit your work. Dr. Beck further explains additional opportunities to increase our interest group panel slots and presence in the association: (1) co-sponsored panels and (2) alternative panel formats, such as Beginning Scholars Classes (formerly known as Master Classes), Breakfast Nook Panels, and Research Brainstorming Sessions. If you are interested in and/or have good ideas for these alternative panel formats, please contact me so that I can provide more information.

Possible Panel Ideas (Last Meeting)

Here are some ideas generated at the meeting (From the meeting minutes).

I think all of these are excellent ideas. I hope that we can follow through some of these ideas. Let's discuss (via email) possible ways to actualize these ideas.

More Ideas (!?!?!?)

The 2009 convention theme emphasizes "connections" among what we do as communication scholars, teachers, students, and/or practitioners. I have been having several ongoing conversations with other interest group chairs and/or our interest group members. So, if you have and/or run into great ideas, please send them my way. If you are looking for panel participants from other interest groups and/or our own, I might be able to assist you to expand your scholarly network-inventions of new "connections." I believe that conventions are such wonderful places to do so.     

New Contact Information

Here is my new contact information. Please submit your papers and panel proposals to the following email address. Should you have questions, concerns, and problems, please feel free to contact me.  My contact information in our Call for Papers and Panels has been already changed.

Satoshi Toyosaki, Ph.D.
Department of Speech Communication
Communications Building 2002-Mail Code 6605
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1100 Lincoln Drive
Carbondale, Illinois 62901
(618) 453-4669
tsatoshi@siu.edu

I am looking forward to working with you. Please let me know ways in which I can continue energizing our interest group and assisting your programs.

Satoshi Toyosaki

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