NCA Annual Convention

NCA 110th Annual Convention: Communication for Greater Regard

November 21 - 24, 2024
New Orleans, LA

 

 

New and Coming to NCA in 2024 Are Virtual Learning Opportunities (VLOs)! As we prepare for our 110th Annual Convention experience, VLOs are being created to encourage a vibrant, year-long conversation around the 2024 convention theme, “Communication for Greater Regard.” VLOs are added-value opportunities for members to learn, interact, and connect. They are designed to showcase member expertise and to enhance member learning among focal groups and/or focal topics. VLO types include a masterclass (less than one hour), an intensive (two to three hours), and a consortium (four hours). Planning is underway to schedule several VLOs leading up to the 2024 convention with the opportunity for in-person meet ups in New Orleans at the convention. Want to learn more or get involved in the creation of VLOs? Do you have suggestions for a VLO focal topic, expertise you would like to share in a VLO, or a focal group you would like to convene for a VLO? Share your insights and ideas today with the VLOs Planning Team. 

 

 

A Message From the Vice President

AS WE CELEBRATE THE 110th ANNIVERSARY OF NCA ANNUAL CONVENTIONS,

the 2024 Convention theme calls us to convene around “Communication for Greater Regard.” Regard is a word of Old French origin and is connected historically to New Orleans by the city’s fertile French roots—making this remarkable city an ideal location for learning, discussing, and contemplating communication for greater regard.

Greater regard is a process of cultivating care and concern; that which we regard is deemed important, granted value, and given consideration. To be a “regarder” is to be one who watches, takes notice, and is expressive, often by increasing with thoughtful intensity amid a climate where less use of regard is occurring.

Communication is both the conduit and manifestation for greater regard. For our 110th Annual Convention, we invite thought-provoking papers, panels, pre-conferences, posters, and programming that engage the three-fold nature of our collective, magnificent stewardship of communication for greater regard: (1) greater regard for what has been before us, (2) greater regard for what is presently around us, and (3) greater regard for what will be beyond us. A variety of questions and approaches, which are often both complementary and competing, exist for exploring this theme including: What does it seem the discipline has regarded for 100+ years? How does communication function in today’s climate to enrich greater regard, how has this shifted over the years, or does it need to shift in the future? How is greater regard currently exhibited in communication research, teaching, service, and practice? How are priorities and power structures shaped in the discipline and/or in human communication endeavors through greater regard or to create greater regard? What intentional contributions should we be actively undertaking to foster greater regard?

Thank you for the honor of serving you and our Association. I look forward to seeing you next year in New Orleans, which will be 30 years since my first NCA convention that was held in the same city. As communication scholars, educators, and practitioners, we must continue to be “regarders” who hold space for conversations that probe what greater regard and disregard look like in 2024 and beyond.

 


Jeanetta D. Sims

University of Central Oklahoma

Dr. Jeanetta Sims is known as a highly collaborative, respectful leader who believes in listening, honoring people and scaling through Mt. Fuji moments. She is a tenured professor and former dean of the University of Central Oklahoma’s (UCO) Graduate College and University College as well as the co-creator with students of the Broncho Education and Learning Lab (BELL). She championed UCO’s HLC Quality Initiative which culminated in a new first year experience called Broncho Blueprint. Dr. Sims is a 30+ award-winning scholar, educator, poet, and founder of Diverse Student Scholars. Along with numerous academic publications, she is the author of poetry and prose in the Moments in Soul-journal series and We Are Here series. In 2022, she was named a DaVinci Institute Fellow, Women Who Inspire Award recipient, a Marketing Management Association Fellow, and the inaugural recipient of NCA AACCD’s Dorothy Pennington Award.