Happy Friday! I was pleased as punch this morning to walk the dog and not return with frostbite on my cheeks, so indeed it is a good Friday. I have lots of cool stuff to share with you today.

Let’s start with Eric’s latest publication: Aoki, E. ( 2017). Strategic Liminality and Trans-regional Mobility: Engaging Diverse City Spaces to Constitute and Negotiate Intersectional Identities of Newfound Class Privilege, Repressed Ethnic Anger, and the (In)visibility of Gay (Male) Life. In Atay, A. and Brower, J. (Eds.),Communication, Culture, and Making Meaning in the City: Ethnographic Engagements in Urban Environments, pp. 197-216. London/New York: Lexington Books.

Let’s move next to our semester’s first C4C (Conversation for Community) being held next Thursday, January 25, 3-4 pm in BSB 105.

Karyl and Greg Head from Career Services along with former and current student interns will be leading a conversation about internships. This C4C comes early in the semester to help prepare our students for an upcoming industry tour, internship fair, and other CLA events. Urge your students to go! I have attached materials for use in your classes.

The Comm Club has already developed a full semester-long set of meetings. One meeting a month will be an event or learning opportunity, one event a month will be more social in nature. The department will make sure there is some sort of meal for all attendees (have you been reading about food insecurity among college students? I have.). Urge your students to join the club. They don’t have to be majors to join the club.

The next meeting is Wednesday, January 24, 5:15 pm in Eddy 11.

We are deep into planning our spring alumni panels. Folks, we really need your help. Please let us know people from your networks of students, people that would be good presenters to our undergraduates. We need names! We need them from you!

Lots of us are heading to San Jose in a few weeks for Western States Communication Association Annual Convention. As always, we will have a table at the Graduate Open House on Friday (note that WSCA runs Friday-Monday this year rather than Saturday–Tuesday) and a reception on Saturday night, the 17th from 7-9 p.m. We will get invites in the mailboxes of those of you who are going to WSCA a week or two before we leave.

On February 22, CSU will be hosting the first annual Human Trafficking Symposium. This conference will include plenary sessions from nationally-known anti-trafficking advocates and breakout sections on either introductory topics (for those new to the issue) or more specialized sessions aimed at professionals in service sectors. The event is free to students, but registration is required. You may go to only selected sessions if you have classes that you’ll be taking or teaching that day. If you have questions, talk with Kari. She’s on the steering committee.

Kari (and a number of other folks from Team Rhetoric) was quoted in a HuffPo article “How Our Reality Show President is Changing the Way Politics and Culture Mix.” Graduate students and I just read KK Campbel’s short essay on ephemeral and enduring criticism. I suggested that the boundary between those two things was fluid. Kari’s participation in this HuffPo essay demonstrates this fluidity.

What else is news? I always fear, when I get to this place in the letter, I have forgotten something that one of you sent me in an email over the week. If I have forgotten to include your news, will you remind me again? I do sometimes use lose track of emails. Not a thing about which I am proud. But it is true!

Hey, I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend. I believe I will be in Denver for the Women’s March. Otherwise, I will be hunkered down reminding myself that the pace of work over a semester is just a tad different then that over break!

Be well, friends. I will catch you again next Friday, and, I hope, over the week.

Yours,
Greg