Less than a month ago, we left San Antonio with our bellies full of Mexican food, our heads full of fresh ideas, and our sights on a new school year. I don’t know about you, but this year’s papers and presentations gave me plenty of food for thought. The quality of RTVJ’s research panels and scholar-to-scholar sessions were a testament to the hard work of your outgoing research chair Dale Cressman. We had some great submissions. As you can see in the table below, we accepted approximately half of them – right where we’re supposed to be.

Twelve of the papers submitted this year came from students. Five of those were accepted (a rate of 41%).

Next year, we can expect to receive even more papers! We’ve got a great conference site in San Francisco. I’m told – because of the destination’s draw – we should expect to see at least a 20% increase in submissions for each division. As incoming Research Chair, I’m extremely excited about the challenges to come. They are many. Right now, I have three priorities:

Need for Judges: With the expected increase in submissions, I will need more judges for next year’s competition. If you’re interested in helping our division, please contact me at lksmith@sc.edu. Let me know what your research interests are and your preferred methodologies. I will try to match you up as best I can. Judges can expect to read approximately three papers each. Be aware, according to AEJMC’s ethical guidelines, you should not judge if you plan to submit research for review in this division.

Diversity Issues among Judges & Paper Topics: One of our missions this year is to increase diversity in several facets of the paper competition. First, we especially need more women and minority judges involved in the review process. If you can help, please do! We also would like to increase the number of papers that address diversity and pedagogical issues. We are considering adding a special request to our division’s “Call for Papers” for research in this area.

Electronic Submissions: This year, we may try electronic submissions. I’m in the process of re-writing the “Call” to address the logistical changes such a system would bring. Due to the expense involved, we will probably not use the same electronic submission system being used by Comm Tech & Policy.

Instead, researchers will likely be asked to e-mail their papers to an address created especially for the competition. They will likely be asked to attach their papers in two of the following three formats (PDF, word, and/or Rich Text Format). Once received, I will forward papers to reviewers/judges (who can either print out hard copies or read the electronic versions). There will be many realities to consider if we do this, including protocols for file names, requiring no information on the cover page of the electronic document, etc. Complications WILL come up. However, the officers feel this system will cut down on the number of trees we need to kill for this competition. It will also cut down on mailing expenses for those submitting papers.

That just about does it for this year’s priorities. Again, I look forward to serving you as Research Chair. If you have any ideas about the issues addressed above, please feel free to contact me. I hope your school year has started out well!