I am running for 1st Vice President of the Western States Communication Association.

WSCA has always been a place where students, scholars, teachers, practitioners, and so many more are able to gather in a community of support. I have fond memories of my initial introduction to WSCA — I served as a student volunteer for the 2002 conference in Long Beach. While I sat at the registration table, scholars from across the western states introduced themselves to me, with their name tags hanging from lanyards, I was connected to theorists whose work I had excitedly read in undergraduate courses. Three years later, I presented my first paper as a graduate student at the San Francisco conference. My commitment to this organization, since that first conference 20 years ago, is built on WSCA’s foundation of community and support.

Today, I am an associate professor of organizational communication at Santa Clara University and a life member of WSCA. My leadership in the organization includes a term as 2^nd Vice President and chair of the Finance Committee. I ran a successful Undergraduate Scholars Research Conference; helped the association reallocate our investments into socially responsible funds; led a complex external review of our finances; and created a successful convention travel grant program for underrepresented students and contingent faculty members. My service to the discipline includes chairing the NCA Caucus on LGBTQ concerns, serving as the inaugural chair of the NCA Diversity Council (now the IDEA council), and as a member of the NCA executive committee. Most recently, I worked on the NCA IDEA taskforce, which created the first-ever inclusive excellence strategic plan for NCA – work that would be vital to WSCA.

My scholarship in social support and my experience in the association has given me insight into the importance of fostering the critical relationships formed at our conventions, especially among underrepresented and underserved students and scholars. At the same time, WSCA is more than our annual convention — we are a community dedicated to the scholarship and celebration of our members. If elected as your 1^st Vice President, I will engage our community to find creative, concrete, and consequential ways to further leverage our association’s mission beyond the walls of our annual convention. I have the organizational skill, compassion, and vision to serve as your 1^st Vice President and I would be honored to represent you in this capacity and hope that you will join me in community and support.

Since the position of 1st Vice President is really a four-year position (1st Vice President, President-Elect, President, and Immediate Past President), here are the goals I would prioritize through my time in these roles:

1. Leverage WSCA resources for broader community support: For a regional association, WSCA is lucky to have excellent resources, including and especially healthy financial reserves. Our association should be able to use those resources to support members of our community who have not had the same level of access as others, including K-12 and community college teachers, adjunct faculty, students of all types, and members of our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. As chair of the WSCA finance committee, I created a conference travel grant program designed for underrepresented students, contingent faculty members, and community college teachers.
   
   As a community of scholars, teachers, artists, and practitioners, we must find ways to expand access to our non-tangible resources, including teaching ideas, mentorship, and support for each others’ scholarship and creative pursuits. To that end, I would implement a more formalized WSCA mentorship program and an idea sharing roundtable throughout the year (not just at our annual convention). We can leverage the rich abundance that unites WSCA members together.
   
   
2. Promote safety at all WSCA events. I am proud to have chaired the NCA Diversity Council (now IDEA council) when we created and passed a conference non-harassment policy. WSCA has started good work in this area, but needs to formalize both the policy and add structural support around that policy. What good is a non-harassment policy with no recourse? As your 1st Vice President I will leverage my experience and training as a conflict mediator to implement a convention ombuds program. There are excellent models at other associations, which we can easily implement to ensure that every member who attends our convention is safe and has a avenue for appropriate recourse when they are not safe.
   
   
3. Ensure that we are serving all members of our community. Our association is built around community and support. Still, members of our community continue to be left in the margins — as an association, we instill equity, justice, and access in everything we do. Recently, I served on the NCA IDEA (Inclusion Diversity Equity and Access) task force (along with WSCA 1st VP Shinsuke Eguchi and Immediate Past President Marnel Niles Goins). Our work concluded with the first ever IDEA strategic plan for the association. The strategic plan includes five concrete goals, which will ensure that IDEA becomes deeply embedded into the fabric of the association while both recognizing and reconciling a history of racism and exclusion in the association. Past WSCA Presidents have certainly set a path forward for the association and I believe that work must continue through the creation of an intentional goal-setting strategic plan focused around IDEA issues.
   
   
4. Finding new ways to engage our community beyond our annual convention. Many people have told me that they feel WSCA is an association known only for two things: an incredible annual convention and some of the best journals in the the discipline. While both are true and important, we can certainly do more. Real opportunities exist for WSCA beyond our convention and our journals. Therefore, as 1st Vice President, I will task our current committees and create a new task force to look at ways that we can expand our reach as a professional association. This is a critical step for us, not just to support our members, but also for the long-term financial wellness of the association. Two important lessons for WSCA may have emerged from this global pandemic: First, there are new and creative ways to engage with each others’ work and second, the cancellation of a conference would have a major fiscal impact to the association potentially decimate our association’s savings. Furthermore, given the complexities of budgets at various universities (for instance, the prohibition for spending state money from California in states like Arizona or Utah), we need new venues for engagement. We must come together in the spirit of innovation to determine what a post-COVID professional association looks like.

If you have questions, would like to chat personally, or just reach out — please feel free to contact me (contact form here). You can also read more about me here and download my CV here.

To vote in this election, simply login to your WSCA account by clicking this link. Once you have logged in, you should be on the “My Profile” page (if not, click “my profile”) at the very top of your screen. Once you are there, scroll to the bottom and look to the right — you’ll see a link titled “2023 Officer Elections” under the section that reads “Online Surveys” it looks like this:

Thank you so much for your support!