Leadership and Governance

NCA is led by dedicated professionals who volunteer their time to advance the goals and objectives of the association. 

2021 Nominating Committee
Call

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2021 Leadership Development Committee Call

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Association Leadership

Executive Committee

The Executive Committee of the Legislative Assembly (LA) administers the policies of the Assembly and, between annual meetings of the LA, serves as the chief administrative authority of the Association.
 

David T. McMahan

Missouri Western State University

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

Roseann M. Mandziuk

Texas State University

Roseann M. Mandziuk is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Rhetorical Studies from the University of Iowa, her M.S. in Communication from Illinois State University, and her B.A. in Speech and in English from Wayne State University. She has been a member of the faculty at Texas State University since 1987.

Roseann’s research focuses upon images of women, the rhetorical uses of history, and the construction of public memory in museums and monuments. She has co-authored a scholarly book about the rhetoric of Sojourner Truth, published numerous articles and book chapters examining historical and contemporary rhetoric, and served as Editor of Women’s Studies in Communication. She has received two Fulbright Scholar Awards, in India and in Poland, and has presented numerous international research lectures. She also was selected as an American Council on Education Fellow.

Roseann’s extensive professional service contributions include President of the Southern States Communication Association, two terms as Finance Board Chair and twelve years as a member of the Affirmative Action/Intercaucus Committee for the National Communication Association, and fifteen years as Chair of the Presidential Work Life Advisory Council on her campus. She has served on numerous editorial boards including Quarterly Journal of Speech and Women’s Studies in Communication, as well as regional and national association publication, nomination, and award committees. Her contributions have been recognized with national and regional professional association awards for teaching, mentoring, and research, including the 2014 Michael M. Osborn Teacher-Scholar Award from SSCA and the 2017 Francine Merritt Award for Contributions to Women in Communication from the NCA Women’s Caucus.

✉ Email: rm07@txstate.edu

Walid Afifi

University of California-Santa Barbara

Walid Afifi (PhD, University of Arizona, 1995) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), where is also currently a member of the Campus Climate Council and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies. Prior to his return to UCSB, he served as department Chair at the University of Iowa (2012-2015), where he was also a member of the Human Rights Commission. He is an author on over 80 journal articles, chapters, or books, and was recently inducted as a Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA). His service to NCA has been vast and long-lasting, including Chair of the Interpersonal Communication division (2004), and a member of the Units Task Force (2009-2011), the NCA Bylaws Task Force (2011-2012), and the Task Force on Inclusivity in the Discipline (2014-2017). Most recently, he was Chair of the Task force on the NCA Center for Community, Collaboration and Change (2017-2019). He is an editorial board member on several leading journals and served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Personal Relationships, and Human Communication Research. He is also currently serving the discipline as a member of the ICA Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Access committee.

✉ Email: w-afifi@ucsb.edu

Kent Ono

Kent Ono

University of Utah

Kent A. Ono is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. His research focuses on media representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation. Professor Ono has made significant contributions to rhetoric and communication theory in three primary areas: critical rhetoric, race and colonialism, and rhetoric and media. His groundbreaking work with John Sloop (Vanderbilt University) in the highly popular area of critical rhetoric has helped change the field of rhetorical studies. Additionally, he has been a scholarly leader of research on race and colonialism in the field of communication, with the best example of this being his book, Contemporary Media Culture and the Remnants of a Colonial Past (2009, Peter Lang), which studies the rhetoric of colonialism in the United States and has been translated into Chinese (Tsinghua University Press). Professor Ono has also contributed to research in rhetoric and media, where his work on television shows such as Mad Men, Star Trek, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, for example, and his work on films such as Pocahontas, Avatar, and Come See the Paradise, have had a significant impact on critical media research. He is past editor of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and Critical Studies in Media Communication (with Ron Jackson). He is also the founding editor of the book series, Critical Cultural Communication, at New York University Press (which he edited with Sarah Banet-Weiser).

✉ Email: Kent.Ono@utah.edu

Rachel Alicia Griffin

University of Utah

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

Vinita Agarwal

Salisbury University

Vinita Agarwal is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Salisbury University (SU), Maryland. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University, M.A. from University of Illinois at Chicago, M.A. from the Mass Communication Research Center, India, and her B.Sc. in Physics (Hons.) from Miranda House, India.

Dr. Agarwal’s research theorizes ecologically aware, relational, and dialogic understandings of whole-person care in health promotion, disease prevention, and chronic illness management. Her monograph, Medical Humanism, Chronic Illness, and the Body in Pain: An Ecology of Wholeness (Lexington Press), integrates her long-term meditation practice, native knowledge, and professional training in Vipassana meditation and Ayurvedic diet and wellness principles to propose an ecological model of wholeness for the therapeutic relationship and healing communication approaches of traditional global medical systems and the biomedical model.

Her research has been published in journals such as Health Communication, the Journal of Patient Experience, Qualitative Health Research,  Journal of Advanced Nursing, and the Journal of American College Health. She is associate editor at Frontiers in Communication (Health Communication) and has received top five paper recognition from the Applied Communication Division, NCA and at the Eastern and Central regional conventions. Her work has been recognized by the Excellence in Scholarship award, the Building Research Excellence grant (SU), and the University System of Maryland Women’s Foundation Faculty Research award. Her commitment to service includes positions such as director for the foundational year of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities and as chair of the Feminist and Gender Studies division, NCA.

✉ Email: vxagarwal@salisbury.edu 

Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly (LA) is the principal policy-making body of the association and is responsible for managing its resources and affairs.
 
 

Councils and Committees

The IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Council is responsible for monitoring and making recommendations to enhance the diversity of the Association.
 
Council Chair: Rachel Alicia Griffin, University of Utah
 
Council Members:
  • James Cherney, University of Nevada, Reno (Disability Issues Caucus)
  • Jaime Guzmán, California State University, Los Angeles (La Raza Caucus)
  • Deryl Johnson, Kutztown University (Black Caucus)
  • Ashley Noel Mack, Louisiana State University (Women's Caucus)
  • Elizabeth Parks, Colorado State University (Asian/Pacific American Caucus)
The Finance Committee is responsible for providing guidance and information to the Legislative Assembly on the financial affairs of the Association, and shall have such other responsibilities as are established from time to time by the Legislative Assembly or Executive Committee of the Legislative Assembly.The committee works jointly with chief financial officer.
 
Committee Chair: Jeanetta Sims, University of Central Oklahoma 
 
Committee Directors:
  • Lisa Flores, University of Colorado, Boulder
  • Rich West, Emerson College
The Publications Council oversees the Association’s publications program, including recommending editors to the Legislative Assembly for the Association's journals and filling journal editor vacancies as necessary. The council works jointly with the director of external affairs and publications.
 
Council Chair: J. Kevin Barge, Texas A&M University
 
Council Members:
  • Nicholas Bowman, Texas Tech University 
  • Jeffrey Child, Kent State University
  • Rachel Dubrofsky, University of South Florida
  • Amber Johnson, Saint Louis University
  • Marina Levina, University of Memphis
  • Rebecca Meisenbach, University of Missouri
The Research Council is responsible for supporting the creation and dissemination of knowledge about communication. The council works jointly with the director of academic & professional affairs.
 
Council Chair: Charles Morris III, Syracuse University
 
Council Members: 
  • Iccha Basnyat, James Madison University 
  • Christopher Carpenter, Western Illinois University 
  • Richard Craig, George Mason University
  • Qingwen Dong, University of the Pacific
  • Shinsuke Eguchi, University of New Mexico
  • Shaunak Sastry, University of Cincinnati
The Teaching and Learning Council supports and promotes disciplinary pedagogy through facilitation of professional development opportunities for communication educators. The council works jointly with the director of academic & professional affairs.
 
Council Chair: Vinita Agarwal, Salisbury University 
 
Council Members:
  • Kristen Blinne, SUNY Oneonta
  • Andy Kai-chun Chuang, La Guardia Community College
  • Eletra Gilchrist-Petty, University of Alabama, Huntsville
  • Eddah Mutua, St. Cloud State University
  • Tara Reed, Tarrant County College South
  • Andrea Vickery SUNY, Oswego

Governance Committees

The Convention Committee is responsible for providing recommendations on issues related to convention locations.
The Nominating Committee prepares a slate for the election of the second vice president and the at-large members of the Legislative Assembly and Leadership Development Committee.
The Leadership Development Committee makes recommendations to fill member vacancies on councils, award committees, and standing committees.
The Resolutions Committee considers resolutions that may be included in the association’s Policy Platform.

 

To submit a proposal regarding administrative policy for the association, please include a rationale for the policy, relevant historical information about the issue under consideration, and a clear description of the full range of implications of the decision for the organization. It is incumbent upon submitters of administrative policy proposals to study the relevant issues before making a submission. Proposals should be sent to the NCA Executive Director. The Executive Director will send the proposal to the NCA committee with the most relevant expertise for review and recommendation. That recommendation will then go to the Executive Committee for consideration and recommendation and to the Legislative Assembly for a final vote.