April 09, 2015

April 21--Graduate Community Research Colloquium: Former SPA GA Maggie Cude presents "Welcome to Your Graduate School Experience: Graduate Student Orientation and the Need for Evaluation"

The Department of Journalism Graduate Community will continue the monthly research colloquium series this April with our annual graduate student research colloquium. Three graduate students will speak about their creative projects and theses, and answer questions after their presentations. This is a great opportunity to learn about research, support fellow students and get inspired for your own creative project.

Date and time: Tuesday, April 21, 2-3 p.m.
Location: Arts and Journalism Building (AJ) 384

Speakers:


Natalie Demarko

Title: Athletes on Social Media: A Social Media Crisis Management Plan for Division I Institutions
Description: This creative project resulted in a student-athlete social media policy and crisis communications plan for Ball State University's Athletics Department. This particular research focused on the crisis management practice developed by W. Timothy Coombs. A content analysis of social media policies from Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Mid-American Conference (MAC) universities was evaluated and combined with a previous qualitative research project that examined BSU Athletics Department's role in monitoring student-athlete social media. These documents are in the works of being analyzed and evaluated by the BSU Athletics Department for possible implementation in the future. 

Tierney Edon

Title: Ball State Child Study Center Media Strategy: Relating to Millennial Parents
Description: This creative project has developed a media strategy for the Ball State Child Study Center based on research that explored the impact of parental involvement in schools as well as millennial parents' needs. Child care center websites are a developing feature of child care facilities to provide digital communication methods for parents. This study is based on Grunig & Hunt's two-way symmetrical model and Epstein's Model for Parental Involvement. A WordPress Blog, Facebook account, and Twitter account were created for the Ball State Child Study Center. Through this media strategy, parents are encouraged to interact rather than observe as well as participate in the way they choose.

Maggie Cude

Title: Welcome to Your Graduate School Experience: Graduate Student Orientation and the Need for Evaluation
Description: Issac, Pruitt-Logan, and Upcraft (1995) called the graduate students' experience "the great unaddressed academic issue in higher education" (p. 13). This study seeks to fill that gap by applying a standard evaluation to three universities from the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and assessing the successes or shortcomings of these orientation programs as a means of socialization. This study's overarching question asks to what extent is orientation a successful means of socializing graduate students to their respective universities. Results from qualitative data analysis revealed that post-orientation, on-campus connections contributed more often as a measure of effectiveness at socializing students to graduate school.

Click here to check out the Ball State Department of Journalism Graduate Community's Facebook page.


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