Organizational Communication Mini Conference
Organizational Communication Mini Conference
OCMC 2026
Located in Boulder, Colorado and co-hosted with Colorado State University October 9-11th, 2026
What is OCMC?
The Organizational Communication Mini-Conference (OCMC) is a conference put on by graduate students for graduate students in the field of Organizational Communication. The conference highlights graduate student work and celebrates the diversity of ideas, theories, and methods within the common thread of organizational communication. OCMC is focused on providing graduate students a platform to present their research, prepare for the job market and their career, and build connections across the field. We are excited to host the 38th conference on October 9-11 2026!
We welcome and encourage a breadth of research perspectives within organizational communication to be submitted, presented, and discussed throughout the conference.
Please do not conduct job interviews at OCMC.
Registration and Submission
The Organizational Communication Mini Conference 2026 is Friday, October 9– Sunday, October 11. Check-in for the conference will begin Friday afternoon just before our pre-conference sessions. Conference activities will wrap up by Sunday afternoon. Detailed scheduling with locations will be uploaded to the “Schedule” page when available. Submissions will be open until 11:59pm MT on June 1st. Presenters will be notified of acceptances on August 1st, and registration will be open until September 12th. We look forward to seeing you!
Submission Guidelines
- Participants can only submit 1 project
- OCMC is organized by students, for students. We offer two formats to showcase your work: interactive posters and dissertation presentations.
- Interactive Posters are designated for graduate students to showcase their current research in organizational communication, get feedback from faculty, and connect with peers. We welcome creative formats for the poster sessions including poster, slides on a laptop, or handouts.
- Oral presentations will be designated for dissertating doctoral candidates who are presenting their research for the first time at OCMC as an oral presentation.
• If you have presented an oral presentation at OCMC previously, you will be considered for an interactive poster presentation. This year, we are separating our oral presentations into two categories: pre-prospectus and post-prospectus presentations.
• Students submitting pre-prospectus presentations will submit their in-progress dissertations, focused on early stage work and soliciting feedback regarding all aspects of the study and conducting the proposed work. Students who have not defended their prospectus by our submission deadline (June 1st), should apply for a pre-prospectus presentation.
• Students submitting post-prospectus submissions will plan to present their dissertation’s data and findings at the conference, and will solicit feedback that focuses more on the positioning and presentation of the work. Students who have defended their prospectus by June 1st and plan to collect and analyze data by OCMC should apply for a post-prospectus presentation.
All submissions should focus on topics relevant to organizational communication.
Please review and ensure your submission includes the following required components. Each component will have a distinct text field to be submitted to, we are not asking for an abstract that includes all components.
- Title
- In lieu of an abstract, we ask for 100 words about the context of your project.
- Research Questions and/or hypotheses
- Methods
- Keywords (used for review and organizational purposes)
References
Information for Presenters
Posters
Additional information about posters will be given at a later date.
Oral Presentations
This section will be updated with detailed instructions when registration goes live in August.
Schedule
This schedule is subject to change prior to event.
Hotel and Travel
Airport
DIA - Denver International Airport.
About 40 minutes from CU Boulder.
Hotels
The main hotel will be Moxy Boulder. We have a block of rooms for conference participants at $229/night. More information about reserving the block of rooms will be available late-summer.
- The Friday evening reception will be at Moxy
Our secondary hotel is Limelight Boulder, right across the street from Moxy.
- We don’t have a block of rooms, but conference participants get a rate of $239/night.
Both hotels are just across the street from campus and within walking distance of all conference venues.
There are a variety of additional hotels near campus such as Boulder University Inn.
Transportation
Shuttle Services from DIA to Boulder, CO
There are various options to get to Boulder, CO, from the Denver International Airport (DIA) described below:
Super Shuttle Boulder
Departs DIA for Boulder at 10 minutes past every hour, from 6:10 am to 11:10 pm. No reservations needed. Travel time is about 70 minutes. Rates vary, so check online, or you can book your ticket ahead of time online. You can also get tickets on Level 5 (baggage claim level) across from Hertz near Door #510.
RTD Bus Service
https://app.rtd-denver.com/route/AB1/schedule
If you use RTD, be sure to either download the RTD app (RTDmyride) or carry exact change for your ticket.
Attendees should take route AB1 (preferred) or AB2 (no weekend service) westbound to Boulder from DIA.
- AB1 goes right past campus and stops in front of the Moxy Hotel and near Limelight…then terminates at the downtown Boulder station.
- AB2 goes east of campus and also terminates at the downtown Boulder station.
- Use Uber or Lyft from the downtown Boulder station to your hotel.
From the airport:
- The RTD busses pick up at gates 6 or 8 on level 1 (transit area). Take the big escalator (the longest in Colorado!) underneath the Westin Hotel down to the ground level.
- RTD bus service operates from approximately 5:20 a.m. to 11:20 p.m.
- The AB1 leaves every hour at the 20-minute mark (10:20, 11:20, etc.) and drivers will help you load and unload your luggage.
- Be sure to show up early because lines form and it’s first-come, first-serve (i.e., buying a ticket does not guarantee a seat on a particular route, just a seat if one is available).
- The AB1 leaves every hour at the 20-minute mark (10:20, 11:20, etc.) and drivers will help you load and unload your luggage.
Boulder zTrip
Not too pricey if you don't take it all the way from the airport. If you take the RTD bus to the main bus terminal in Boulder (at 14th and Walnut), you can get almost anywhere in town for a couple of bucks.https://www.ztrip.com/boulder/
Accessibility
Accommodations
If you have questions about accessibility at the conference, please email us at CLA_OCMC2026@colostate.edu.
For current accessibility information at CU Boulder, visit:
https://www.colorado.edu/oiec/ada-accessibility/access-accessibility/event-planning
Lactation Spaces
CU Boulder provides dedicated lactation space for students, employees, and visitors who wish to breastfeed and/or express breastmilk on campus. The University recognizes the importance and benefits of breastfeeding for parents and their infants and supports new parents as part of its commitment to promoting a family-friendly work and study environment.
Lactation rooms are available throughout campus and a complete list with location details can be found on the CU Boulder Campus map.
Read the full Lactation Space Policy. For employees needing pregnancy accommodations, more information is available here.
Gender Neutral Bathrooms
CU Boulder has several all-gender restrooms throughout campus. View a map of gender inclusive restroom on campus here.
Dietary Restrictions
All food throughout the conference will be marked to accommodate dietary restrictions. If you have a question about the meals, please find a staff member or caterer.
Planning Committee
OCMC is by students and for students. Meet our student team who has worked to put together this year’s conference! Click on the links below to see their CU Boulder and CSU bios.
Autumn Buzzetta
Autumn Buzzetta is a Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She specializes in organizational communication and is interested in topics like crisis, resilience, and sensemaking, particularly in nontraditional and religious organizations.
Learn more about Autumn and contact them here.
Mervenur Cetin
Mervenur Cetin is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. She specializes in digital communication and is interested in human-AI interaction, particularly how communities make sense of emerging technologies, and regulate their uses through norms, particularly in the mental health context.
Learn more about Mervenur and contact them here.
Morgan Gimblet
Morgan Gimblet (she/they) is a second-year PhD student in Organizational Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. Their research focuses on feminist alternative organizing and how communication, organizational structures, and power intersect. Her current work explores labor organizing among members of the Women's National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) union.
Learn more about Morgan and contact them here.
Joseph Lee
Joseph Lee is an organizational communication PhD student at University of Colorado Boulder. His research intersects organizing, technology, and disability, specifically the communicative properties and dimensions of computer software source code as it relates to definitions and discussion of disability in software development organizations.
Learn more about Joseph and contact them here.
Hannah Luz
Hannah P. Luz (she/her) is a Doctoral Candidate in Organizational Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research centers critical and feminist perspectives on food justice within alternative organizing contexts. This work focuses on the entanglements of critical environmental justice, organizationality, care, and critiques of neoliberalism.
Learn more about Hannah and contact them here.
Cassidy Moore
Cassidy Moore (she/her) is a PhD student in organizational communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her work interrogates how care and reproductive labor are organized and the potential for mothers to organize in resistance to societal norms.
Learn more about Cassidy and contact her here.
Brystal Nevins-Grimm
Brystal Nevins-Grimm (she/her) is a PhD student in organizational communication at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Her work focuses on policies, processes, and practices in organizational structures, particularly in higher education institutions.
Learn more about Brystal and contact her here.
Rachel Wuester
Rachel Wuester (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in organizational communication at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Her research interests lie at the intersections of environmental, organizational, and crisis communication in hopes of fostering stronger, more resilient communication practices in communities affected by unexpected change.
Learn more about Rachel and contact her here.
Special Thanks
Special thanks to the faculty and staff in our departments who have helped in making this conference possible!
Dr Matt Koschmann (CU Boulder), Dr. Ziyu Long (CSU), Dr. Elizabeth Williams (CSU), Nathalie Martinez (CSU)