The Korean American Communication Association
At a conference, you are measured against professional standards, and over time you will improve your performance. Just as a musician grows by giving recitals and golfers improve by playing in tournaments, so a scholar matures by making presentations at professional gatherings. [Cahn, From Student to scholar, p.20]
Related Post: Conference Rookies
ICA Report
May 22 – 26 2008 Montreal CanadaRelated blog post: KACA ICA 08 – pics
In 2008 ICA, KACA hosted several events: KACA state-of-the-art panel session, KACA business meeting, KACA reception, and a breakfast meeting for students.
Four papers were chosen to be presented in the KACA state-of-the art panel session:
Framing of South Korean Legislator Blogs. Sungwook Hwang (U of Missouri – Columbia), Wayne Wanta (U of Missouri) The Impact of Korean Television Drama Viewership on the Social Perceptions of Single Life and Having Fewer Children in Married Life. Bumsub Jin (U of Florida), Seongjung Jeong (Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts) Women of Stuck-Generation and New-Generation in South Korea: Internal Dialectics in Transitional Mother-Daughter Relationships. Sook-Young Lee (Luther College) Balanced Friendship and Social Information Processing: A Simultaneous Test of Two Theories with Implications for Job Satisfaction. Hye Eun Lee (U of Hawaii – Manoa), Hee Sun Park (Michigan State U), Jeonghee Noh (Michigan State U)
KACA president, Dr. Hye-ryeon Lee chaired the session and led the discussion after presentations. Presentations were well received and followed by highly engaging and quality discussion.
KACA hosted a business meeting after the panel session. Because of conflict with other conference schedules, only small number of members attended. One of the main topics discussed in the meeting was how to attract larger audience to KACA panel sessions. Many ideas were suggested and entertained including submitting a panel proposal for special topics.
KACA reception was a huge success with students and professors from both Korea and North America. Montreal consul general Shin Gil-Sou, who sponsored the reception, attended and gave a speech of encouragement.
NCA Report
November 20 – 24 2008 San Diego, CA
In 2008 NCA, KACA hosted KACA research panel session, a special panel session for students, and KACA reception.
Five papers were presented in the KACA research panel session:
The Construction and Consumption of National Images: The Ambivalence of South Korean Soccer Fans as the Public or the Consumers
Taesik Kim (University of Oklahoma)
How Does News Media Frame Organizational Crisis Response? Selective Bias of Crisis News Coverage in South Korea Political Crisis
Seon-Kyoung An (University of Alabama), Seung Ho Cho (Mississippi State University)
Exploring Communication Competence and Psychological Adaptation
Yang-Soo Kim (Middle Tenn State Univ)
Perception of ‘Speaking Well’ Among College Students in Korea
Eun-Ho Yeo (Plymouth State University), Kyung-Woo Park (Dong-A University, Korea)
Translating the Foreign: How Contemporary South and North Korea Received, Transformed, and Accommodated Foreign Language, Culture, and Modernity
JongHwa Lee, Loyola Marymount Univ
Dr. Jung-Soo Yi, Wright State University, chaired the session. Dr. Yi offered thoughtful and detailed comments for each paper as a respondent.
KACA organized a special panel for mainly graduate students, titled “The Arts of Teaching and Research in America.” Three scholars who represented different areas of communication research shared their experiences in teaching and research communication phenomena. Presenters were Dr. Eun-Ho Yeo, Plymouth State University, Dr. Hye-Jin Paek, Michigan State University, and Dr. Sook-Young Lee,(Luther College.
KACA reception was held at a Korean restaurant in Northern San Diego. More than 30 students and faculty members attended. In the reception, KACA members had a special time to remember late Dr. Seung H. Lee, who was one of the founding fathers of KACA and passed away at November 15, 2008. Dr. Kyu Ho Youm at University of Oregon and Dr. Dong-Hyun Byun of Sogang University shared their memories of late Dr. Lee.
The CHE article, “Conference Rookies: Preparing to attend your first big academic convention? Here’s what you need to consider,” would be useful reading to those who consider attending conventions as a job search opportunity.
[Hat tip, Dr. Youm]
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Dr. Youm and all other colleagues,
A very useful item, indeed, for all in this academic market. This article may have a sequel in the next Chronicle issues, but it occurs to me there are a few other points to consider, too.
1) Even if your field isn’t in some area of mass communication, it is strongly suggested that you read the media of the conference city as soon as you arrive there. What you are aware of regarding the comings, goings and happenings in the conference site could be very handy and useful for the small talks that you invariably need to engage yourself in the interviews.
2) Be aware of the major themes, highlights or special items the particular conference is about to tackle there. Plenary sessions tend to deal with such items. A job interview, in a sense, is not merely an isolated event but a process occurring in the totality of the conference environment, especially conversation-wise.
3) If I land an interview appointment, I would immediately go to my laptop to learn and decipher the nature of the program of the interviewer’s school. An editor of a metropolitan newspaper here in Cleveland once told me he dismissed a candidate at the outset of the interview when she exposed her preparedness, rather lack of, by sayng “Oh, you publish Sunday issues, too?”
4) I will seek further information about the school by talking to those who are likely to have some awareness of the program in question. And one of the most reliable folks who would really care about your placement would be the faculty of your alma mater, especially your doctoral degree mentor or supervisor.
5) Modesty or humility is not a monopoly of the Asian or Confucian virtues. If the guy says “my theory is …” or “my study proves …,” I begin to doubt if this person will have the room to grow further or work with others in my faculty in collegial manners. Instead, you could have said: “Since I liked this particular line of theoretic reasoning, I am interested in pursuing, or I spent some time in ….”
6) There might be many other additional things to think of, but one obvious thing is that you are a Ph.D. with a Korean background. The corollary is: in what specific ways would your Korean background or connection be beneficial to the school you are desiring to be affiliated with. These days here in Cleveland when we have an opening in public relations or advertising, it seems almost one third of the candidates are Koreans. Yet very few of them showed any feasibility, however remote, of putting their Korean connection to any advantage to our program.
An e-mail note is supposed to be brief, hence this ending at this point. Happy holidays–of course, after suffering or surviving the chores of the close of the semester.
Jae-won Lee
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