Thanks

I’m at the International Communication Association meeting in London. I’ve seen some interesting research presentations. I've sat beside my former students as we watched their former students presenting research papers. Sometimes you can see the genetic resemblance in their work. (Sometimes you can see a mutation.) It is amazing.

I am being recognized at this conference with some wonderful distinctions of which I am very proud and deeply touched: The Steven Chaffee Career Achievement Award, and election as an ICA Fellow. There is more to each of them but they both recognize an individual’s contributions to and influence on others’ thinking and communication research. The former also recognizes a long program of research on a relatively closely-related set of questions, and doing this for over 20 years now has been an immense source of satisfaction for me. Given what the academic profession is supposed to be about, I am quite moved to have been recognized for these things. 

I am indebted to many people in the field who contributed to the way the work has had its reach, who have used and expanded the body of work which I’ve studied. It has been a recurring theme for me this year that I love being a student. So much learning  derives from the synthetic dialogue that occurs when other scholars appropriate and expand and rearrange and apply one’s ideas in ways one didn’t imagine.

I am profoundly grateful to the individuals who nominated me for these awards, and who supported my Fulbright application. I have gotten to thank many of these individuals personally, face-to-face and/or in writing. I will continue to do so.

There are some people I cannot thank in person and I’d like to mention them here.

A scholar’s work is subject to anonymous peer review as part of the publication consideration process, and reviewers, without any real compensation, give of their time and effort to provide criticism and suggestions. I have no idea who most of the people are who have given me the most help over the years in refining the expression of my ideas and in providing invaluable recommendations for improving what I do. It is never easy to receive criticism, and it is hard to receive challenges, but my work always improves, to a greater or lesser extent, based on this anonymous exchange. The reviewers eventually discover who the author was when a paper becomes a published article, but an author seldom finds out who the reviewers were. If you read this and you have ever been a reviewer of my research, please accept my sincere thanks.

There is another individual who I cannot thank enough because my debt of gratitude is too great and because he is no longer with us.

Last August we lost Prof. Chuck Atkin, a great scholar, a wonderful department chair, and a true and special friend. Among so many wonderful things he did, Chuck wrote in support of my Fulbright application and helped me obtain the sabbatical I have enjoyed so tremendously. I have been thinking about Chuck so often this year for many reasons, not only for his direct support in these endeavors. Chuck loved to do research and he experienced real joy doing it with others and sharing it with people, and he loved for his friends and colleagues to experience that same exquisite pleasure. So I think he would have been very happy that I have been able to do those things myself so much this year.

I think about Chuck most often in the morning when I get dressed, thanks to Prof. Sandi Smith, Chuck’s wife, who is also a dear friend and colleague, supporter, and teacher to me. Sandi has given me a good number of Chuck’s clothes. It is well known that Sandi played a very large role in Chuck’s clothing style. (That is, before Sandi he had none. Style, that is.). So these garments are very, very nice: elegant, dressy and/or sporty, professional.

When Sandi gave me some of Chuck’s shirts last fall, I hung them altogether in my closet and referred to them as The Charles Collection. Occasionally I’d send the Sandies (Sandi Smith and Sandra Walther) a picture of me wearing one of them. 

I have taken a number of them with me overseas. We call them The Eurocharles Collection. (The s is silent.)

I think about Chuck each time I put one on. They remind me to appreciate the joy of what I do, just as Chuck enjoyed so much what we do, doing research and learning things and having so much fun sharing it with others. I am wearing Chuck’s suit today as I am recognized for doing what we love so much. 

Thank you, Sandi. Thank you, Sandy.

I tried blogging this year at the suggestion of the Fulbright Foundation, part of the mission of which is for American academics to share their knowledge and culture with other people, and to share their experience with Americans back home as well. Fulbright sees social media as a new way to help do this. I must say that keeping a blog kept me cognizant of that objective, and kept my eyes open to experiences in ways I may not have been otherwise so attuned. But I don’t think blogging is for me on any kind of ongoing basis. It provides a certain publication pressure (of which I already have enough, thank you) without the benefit of helpful anonymous reviews. It is too personal. I usually write about my work, not about myself. So I’m signing off now. Thanks for the many nice comments about these notes.

--Joe