Leadership and Governance

David T. McMahan is a Professor of Communication at Missouri Western State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2001, with research focusing on the social aspects of media and technology, personal relationships, and rhetorical criticism. He has published over ten books, including Internet Communication, Introduction to Communication Criticism, Relational Communication, The Basics of Communication, and the bestselling Communication in Everyday Life series. His research and other works have been published in numerous academic journals and anthologies, and he was named a Centennial Scholar by the Eastern Communication Association. His extensive record of service includes President of the Central States Communication Association, Editor of the Iowa Journal of Communication, and Consulting Editor of the Journal of Communication Pedagogy, along with membership and activity on a vast number of academic committees, executive boards, and editorial boards. He has taught courses which span the discipline of communication and has received several awards for his work in the classroom.

✉ Email: mcmahan@missouriwestern.edu

Ron Jackson is Professor in the Department of Communication at University of Cincinnati. He is CEO and Founding Principal Consultant of Cinspire Consulting and Coaching, a management consulting firm specializing in communication, team building, strategic transformation, as well as diversity and inclusion. Dr. Jackson has been engaged in training, research, and education for over 20 years.

He is one of the leading communication and identity scholars in the nation, and is author of fourteen books including Scripting the Black Masculine Body in Popular Media, Interpreting Tyler Perry (with Jamel Bell; Routledge), the 2014 Comic-Con Eisner Award winning book Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation (with Sheena Howard; Bloomsbury), and the forthcoming anthology Gladiators in Suits: Race, gender, and politics of representation in Scandal (with Kimberly Moffit and Simone Puff). His research has won numerous awards including the National Communication Association’s Franklyn Haiman Award and the Eastern Communication Association’s Everett Lee Hunt Award.

✉ Email: ron.jackson@uc.edu

Rachel Alicia Griffin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Race and Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. As a critical/cultural scholar her research interests span Black feminist thought, critical race theory, sexual violence, and the social institutions of sport, media, education, and the U.S. presidency. From 2012 to 2015 Dr. Griffin was awarded the Judge William Holmes Cook Professorship by the Office of the Associate Chancellor for Institutional Diversity at SIU and in 2013 she was awarded the College of Liberal Arts Early Career Faculty Excellence Award at SIU. She was also awarded the 2015 Scholar-Activist Award by the Critical Cultural Studies Division and the 2015 Rex Crawley Outstanding Service Award by the African American Communication Division and Black Caucus via the National Communication Association. Most recently, Dr. Griffin earned WSCA’s 2018 Exemplary Teacher Award and a 2018-2019 Tanner Humanities Center Fellowship at the University of Utah. Dr. Griffin has also published in several journals including Women’s Studies in Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, The Howard Journal of Communications, the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, and Communication, Culture, & Critique.

Additionally, she is the co-editor of Adventures in Shondaland: Identity Politics and the Power of Representation (Rutgers University Press, 2018). Her pending research project is a co-authored monograph titled Marginalization and the Modern Presidency: Presidential Communication, Identity Politics, and the Battle for “Real’ America. Exceptionally committed to sustaining synergy between research and service, Dr. Griffin has delivered well over 100 anti-sexual violence and Inclusive Excellence presentations on campuses and at conferences nationally and internationally. She especially prizes having spoken for U.S. state coalitions against sexual violence in North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Maryland, California, Illinois, and Washington alongside several opportunities to advocate against sexual violence in Canada. 

✉ Email: Rachel.a.griffin@utah.edu

Kevin Barge (Ph.D., University of Kansas, 1985) is Professor and Head of Communication at Texas A & M University and an Associate with the Taos Institute. He is also a member of the planning team for the Aspen Conference, a community of engaged organizational communication scholars focused on developing practical theory and collaborative research that bridge academic-practitioner interests.

Kevin’s major research interests center on developing a social constructionist approach to leadership, articulating the connections between appreciative practice and organizational change, as well as exploring the relationship between discourse and public deliberation, specifically practices that facilitate communities working through polarized and polarizing issues.  Other research interests include investigating the role of reflexivity in leadership and management practice, examining ways to develop effective academic-practitioner collaborations, and developing practical theory.

He has published articles on leadership, dialogue, and organizational change in The Academy of Management Review, Management Communication Quarterly, Human Relations, Communication Theory, Journal of Applied Communication Research, and Communication Monographs.  Kevin has served on a number of national and international editorial boards for journals such as Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Human Relations, and Journal of Management Studies.  He is a former editor of Communication Studies and a former president of the Central States Communication Association.

✉ Email: kbarge@tamu.edu

Mindy Fenske is an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina (USC).  She received her M.A. from Arizona State University, and her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. She is the current Editor of Text and Performance Quarterly (2016-2018), and the former Director of the Speech Communication and Rhetoric Program at USC.

Fenske is a performance studies and rhetoric scholar whose research interests include the critical genealogy of bodies in contemporary visual culture, the political force of embodiment in the public sphere, the role of embodied performance in the history of rhetoric and oratory, and the ethics of performance composition and research. Fenske is the author of Tattoos in American Visual Culture (2007) as well as several essays published in journals such as Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Review of Communication, and Text and Performance Quarterly.  Fenske is the recipient of NCA’s Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies and NCA’s Golden Anniversary Monograph Award.

✉ Email: mindy.fenske@gmail.com

Shannon VanHorn is a Professor of Education and Graduate Studies at Valley City State University. She holds both an M.S. and a Ph. D. in Communication Studies from North Dakota State University.  She has served NCA on the nominating committee, through the leadership rotation of the Human Communication and Technology Division and the Communication and the Future Division, chaired The Donald P. Cushman Award, and as a member of the Educational Policies Board.

In addition, VanHorn is active in the Central States Communication Association, having served through the leadership rotation of the Instructional Resource Interest Group and currently as a member of the Presidential Economic Initiative of Higher Education. She has been the President of the Communication, Speech, and Theatre Association of North Dakota, as well as edited the Journal of Communication, Speech, and Theatre of North Dakota.

VanHorn’s research interests include communication pedagogy, instructional technology, faculty development, and online learning, and has published in such venues as Argumentation and Advocacy, Communication Quarterly, Journal of Advertising Education, and Qualitative Research Reports. 

✉ Email: Shannon.vanhorn@vcsu.edu

Raymie E. McKerrow retired 9/1/15 as the Charles E. Zumkehr Professor in the School of Communication Studies, and Affiliate Faculty in Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University. He earned his B. S. in Speech at Southern Illinois University, an M. A. at Colorado State University, and his Ph. D. in Speech Communication at the University of Iowa. He taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1971-73), the University of Maine, and Ohio University (1995-2015).

He taught undergraduate and graduate courses, primarily in contemporary rhetorical theory and  feminist rhetoric. At Ohio University, he has directed 12 MA committees, 29 doctoral dissertations, and served on 40 doctoral committees.

He has served as President of the Eastern Communication Association and as President of the National Communication Association. He also has edited Argumentation and Advocacy, Communication Quarterly, the Review of Communication and the Quarterly Journal of Speech. He has received the Wallace A. Bacon Lifetime Teaching Excellence Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Critical and Cultural Studies Division, the Douglas Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar Award, and the Charles H. Woolbert Award from NCA. 

✉ Email: mckerrow@ohio.edu

Dr. Jeanetta D. Sims is Dean of the Jackson College of Graduate Studies and Professor in the marketing department of the College of Business at UCO, where she teaches courses in marketing and communication, and is accredited in public relations (APR). Her program of research includes strategic communication, workforce diversity, and persuasion and social influence. She founded Diverse Student Scholars (www.diversestudentscholars.com), which is a robust interdisciplinary program of student research engagement in existence since 2007.

Dr. Sims has received university and national awards for her teaching (in 2014, 2012, and 2009) and for her scholarship through winning top paper or merit awards from the university or at national and international conferences in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2013, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2006; three of the top paper awards included undergraduate student co-authors. She is co-editor of the annual UCO Transformative Learning Conference Proceedings, the Journal of Transformative Learning, and Developing Workforce Diversity Programs, Curriculum, and Degrees in Higher Education. Her research appears in multiple book chapters as well as in the Journal of Communication, Journal of Public Relations Research, Human Communication Research, Atlantic Marketing Journal, Corporate Reputation Review, Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Western Journal of Communication, Journal of Business Diversity, Florida Communication Journal, and Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly.

Dr. Sims serves nationally in elected or appointed positions for the Higher Learning Commission, the Council on Undergraduate Research, the National Communication Association, the Marketing Management Association, and the North American Management Society.

✉ Email: jsims7@uco.edu

Trevor Parry-Giles graduated from Ripon College and holds an M.A. from the University of New Mexico and a Ph.D. from Indiana University. In addition to his NCA position, he is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland; he taught previously at St. Ambrose University and at Western Illinois University.

Dr. Parry-Giles's research and teaching focus on the historical and contemporary relationships between rhetoric, politics, law, and popular culture. He is the co-author The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism and Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality and Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics (which received the Everett Lee Hunt Award from the Eastern Communication Association). Dr. Parry-Giles is also the author of The Character of Justice: Rhetoric, Law, and Politics in the Supreme Court Confirmation Process (recipient of the NCA Diamond Anniversary Book Award, the Kohrs-Campbell Prize in Rhetorical Criticism, and the NCA Public Address Division's Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award). His research has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, the Journal of Communication, and elsewhere.

Dr. Parry-Giles is a Distinguished Research Fellow and a Distinguished Teaching Fellow of the Eastern Communication Association. In 2019, Parry-Giles received the University of Maryland's Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year Award.

Dr. Parry-Giles tweets @trevorpg; ✉ email: tparrygiles@natcom.org