Association for Communication Administration

Administrator of the Year Award 2019

Dr. Dawn O. Braithwaite, Department Chair & Willa Cather Professor, Interpersonal & Family Communication, Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, received the ACA Administrator of the Year Award for 2019.

Dr. Braithwaite studies how people in personal and family relationships communicate and negotiate family change and challenges. Her research centers on communication in understudied and changing families, communication rituals, and dialectics of relating in stepfamilies and among voluntary (fictive) kin. Dr. Braithwaite has authored over 120 articles and is co-author or co-editor of five books including Family Communication: Cohesion and Change and Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication. She received the National Communication Association's Brommel Award for Outstanding Contributions in Family Communication and the NCA Becker Distinguished Service Award. She received the outstanding book awards from the NCA Family Communication Division and the Interpersonal Communication Division. She was awarded the UNL College of Arts and Sciences Award for Outstanding Research in Social Science. Dr. Braithwaite was named the Western States Communication Association Distinguished Scholar in 2014.  Dr. Braithwaite is a Past President of the Western States Communication Association and a Past President of the National Communication Association.

Association for Communication Administration

Outstanding Article Award for the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Awarded 2019, for articles published between 2017-2018 

The inaugural Outstanding Article Award for the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration was given to Mark Hickson III, for his article, “Legal, Ethical and Appropriate Interaction,” Volume 36, Issue 1, Winter-Spring 2017, 2-12.

Dr. Hickson holds degrees in Secondary Education, Broadcasting, Sociology, Communication, and Law from five different universities. Over the years, he has taught broadly across the entire spectrum of communication education, from public speaking to small group to interpersonal. While in the US Army, Dr. Hickson edited counterintelligence and counterterrorism publications. Dr. Hickson has been at the University of Alabama, Birmingham for over 25 years.

“Legal, Ethical, and Appropriate Interaction” was the committee’s unanimous choice. In it, Dr. Hickson explains fully why ‘appropriate interactions’ are the main job of a department head or chair. Whether the interaction is with profs, students, or peers, Dr. Hickson had the insight that more often than not, the other person just wanted to be heard, to be really listened to. Of one student he said, “She just wanted to talk out the problem with the teacher. She didn’t want me to talk to the instructor. She didn’t want to drop. In large measure, she didn’t even want me to assure her. All she wanted was for someone with assumed power to listen. Listen” (p. 2). The article’s wisdom speaks to anyone who wants to serve their department well—pay attention, listen, and respond appropriately.

The award committee was led by Past-President Helen Sterk and was comprised of Drs. Benjamin Myers, Amy Koerber, Jay Brower, and Michael Smith.