ASU faculty, students receive top honors at national communication conference

ASU faculty and graduate students in Arizona State University's Hugh Downs School of Human Communication received numerous awards and recognition at the National Communication Association (NCA) 106th annual convention, held virtually Nov. 19–22 due to the pandemic.

Hugh Downs School Professor Sarah Tracy received the Distinguished Scholar Award, the association’s highest accolade. It honors a lifetime of scholarly achievement in the study of human communication. Recipients are selected by their peers to showcase the best of the communication discipline.

Tracy previously received NCA’s prestigious Charles Woolbert Award and the Western States Communication Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2018. 

Also, Hugh Downs School Associate Professor Daniel Brouwer received the Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division Faculty Mentor Award, and Assistant Professor Benny LeMaster received the Best Book Award from the Ethnography Division.

Hugh Downs School Professor Benjamin Broome and five current and former doctoral students received the Distinguished Scholarship Award for Top Journal Article from the International and Intercultural Communication Division. (Broome, B. J., Derk, I., Razzante, R. J., Steiner, E., Taylor, J., & Zamora, A. 2019).

“The number and nature of these awards clearly spotlight the great things we are doing in the Hugh Downs School,” said Paul Mongeau, professor and interim director of the Hugh Downs School. “From Sarah Tracy’s award recognizing a lifetime of scholarly achievement to graduate students’ top paper awards, these accolades are well deserved and represent a great deal of hard work, both in teaching and research.”

Additional awards were received by Hugh Downs School graduate students:

• Corey Reutlinger, Top Student Papers Award, Ethnography Division.
• Callie Graham, Top Student Papers Award, Interpersonal Communication Division.
• Tyler Rife, Top Student Paper Award, Performance Studies Division.
• Cristopher Tietsort, Top GIFTS (Great Idea for Teaching Students) Activity.
• Benjamin Brandley, MA Thesis of the Year, American Studies Division and from the Spiritual Communication Division.

Broome, who is director of the Interdisciplinary PhD program in the Hugh Downs School, is especially proud of the achievements of the doctoral students: “Our students are always among the most visible of the graduate students at the conference, appearing on dozens of panels presenting innovative research that helps move the field forward, and they are regularly recognized with top paper honors in numerous divisions across the organization. This is a testament to both their accomplishments and the high quality of advising they receive in our doctoral program.”

See the full list of NCA presentations from the Hugh Downs School.