NCA Inside & Out

The National Communication Association Executive Committee, led by NCA President Ronald Jackson II, recently appointed Trevor Parry-Giles as NCA’s Executive Director, effective immediately. Parry-Giles has served as Interim Executive Director since September 2017. He previously served for more than five years as NCA’s Director of Academic and Professional Affairs.

In addition to his NCA position, Parry-Giles has been a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland since 1999. His research and teaching focus on the historical and contemporary relationships between rhetoric, politics, law, and popular culture. He is the co-author of The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism and Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality and Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics (which received the Everett Lee Hunt Award from the Eastern Communication Association). Parry-Giles is also the author of The Character of Justice: Rhetoric, Law, and Politics in the Supreme Court Confirmation Process (recipient of the NCA Diamond Anniversary Book Award, the Kohrs-Campbell Prize in Rhetorical Criticism, and the NCA Public Address Division's Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award). His research has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, the Journal of Communication, and elsewhere.

Over the past several months, Parry-Giles has focused on ensuring the ongoing excellence of NCA programs and operations, leading the implementation of NCA’s new income-based dues structure, enhancement of the organization’s technical capacity, and further development of NCA’s public programming. He also has expanded the association’s external presence, including increasing NCA’s advocacy efforts and being named to the American Council of Learned Societies’ CEO Advocacy Working Group. His priorities for the future include developing additional programmatic partnerships and broadening the association’s inclusivity efforts.

“Last month’s NCA Leadership Retreat offered compelling evidence of the leadership and energy emanating from all quarters of the association,” Parry-Giles said. “I was particularly pleased with the amazing diversity of voices at the retreat—members came from all institutional and intellectual backgrounds, and were richly diverse in terms of demographics and personal characteristics. It was the most diverse and inclusive gathering we’ve ever had at an NCA Leadership Retreat, and I hope to harness that energy and enthusiasm to further actuate my own and NCA’s sincere dedication to greater diversity, inclusion, and equity. With our dedicated efforts, NCA can come to be seen as a center of inclusive excellence for all audiences and stakeholders.”