NCA 2021 Second Vice President Election Spotlight

NCA members are asked to vote in its annual election. One position on the ballot for 2021 is the election for Second Vice President. The candidate is Marnel Niles Goins, Dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities and Professor of Communication at Marymount University. A candidate acclamation vote will take place with a term beginning in January 2022. 

Balloting for the election opened on Wednesday, December 1 and will close on Wednesday, December 29 at 5 p.m. EST. All active individual members of NCA are eligible to vote in the election. The election will be conducted through the NCA website. You must login to your NCA account in order to vote. Questions about your account should be emailed to inbox@natcom.org. 

VOTE HERE

2021 NCA Election Ballot

View the entire NCA Election Slate (click to expand)

Spotlight on: Second Vice President

A candidate acclamation vote will take place with a term beginning in January 2022.

• Marnel Niles Goins, Marymount University

Please visit marnelnilesgoins.com for more information about the candidate. 

Vision Statement – Marnel Niles Goins

I joined the National Communication Association (NCA) in 2005 while working on my Ph.D. at Howard University and have been attending NCA’s annual conventions since that period. After graduating, I served as Chair of the Black Caucus and Secretary of the Group Communication Division of NCA. In December 2019, I ended my three-year term on the Executive Committee of NCA, where I served on the three-person Finance Committee, becoming Chair in November 2018. I currently serve on the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Task Force. I am also the current President of the Western States Communication Association.

As such, I had many opportunities to see the inner-workings and outer-effects of the Association from a variety of perspectives: as a graduate student, tenure-track and tenured faculty member, and administrator; as a member and chair of a caucus; as a member and officer of a division; as a director and chair over NCA’s finances; as a member of the Executive Committee during the transition between two executive directors, the distinguished scholars controversy, and the #communicationsowhite campaign; and as a leader of one of the regional Communication associations. It is my experiences in these varied roles that form the goals and ideas that I envision for the association. Fundamentally, these goals stem from the idea that we need to thoroughly examine who we are as an organization.

At a macro level, we need to examine and revise NCA’s strategic plan. Our most recent strategic plan was approved by the Executive Committee in 2009 and revised in 2015. In it are five goals for the association: cultivate Communication research; enhance Communication teaching and learning; disseminate knowledge about Communication; facilitate professional development for Communication scholars and educators; and manage the association effectively and efficiently.

In addition to the revision of NCA’s strategic plan, I also propose two new programs for the organization: an administrator’s institute and an annual teacher’s workshop. NCA’s resources for department chairs have been effective in the professional development and growth of department chairs around the nation and world. This includes the biennial Chair’s Summer Institute, as well as a Chair’s corner with many resources on the NCA website. However, there is an increasing number of members of NCA who are higher education administrators, including directors, associate deans, deans, vice-presidents, provosts, presidents, and even chancellors. Some departments and universities have effectively established pipelines to prepare faculty for these positions, and it is time for NCA to create a formal association-wide institute that prepares our members, who come from varied backgrounds, experiences, and institutions, for these positions. If we truly believe that, as communication scholars, our knowledge and skills are useful in institutional contexts, we must create a pipeline to prepare our diverse members to fulfill leadership roles in academia.

NCA provides resources for teaching, including its Teacher on Teaching series, which recognizes outstanding teachers and provides a platform for them to share their expertise with NCA members during the annual convention. It is my hope that this series will be expanded in order to develop and strengthen a generation of teachers who are intentional in teaching Communication through an inclusive lens. The result would be a rise in faculty incorporating and embedding national and international Communication scholarship in their courses throughout entire semesters, so that the diversity of our scholarship is both recognized and deemed essential to faculty and students. Ultimately, my goal is to expand the series to an annual summer workshop for seasoned and new faculty, preparing attendees to create a truly inclusive classroom environment.

I have had many opportunities to experience how NCA works, as a member and in many leadership positions. I am excited about the future of the association and believe that, as an organization, we will continue to improve our relationship with our members and publics, while also challenging ourselves to change and grow. This begins with a significant revision to our strategic plan, and continues with the implementation of strategies and products that work toward this plan.