News and Research

Several new classes are being offered by the department in spring 2009, including:

• COM 482: Security Discourse
• COM 115: Critical Thinking in Daily Life
• COM 415: Family Communication.

See the UNLV class schedule.

The Department's Fall 2008 Speech Contest was held on Nov. 15. Of the more than 1,000 students enrolled in COM 101 Oral Communication, 39 students representing the best speeches given during the entire semester, based on peer and instructor evaluations, competed for a variety of prizes. The winners were:

• 1st Place: Andrew Fischette, "Don't Text While Driving"
• 2nd Place: Yuying Fan, "Eat Less Junk Food"
• 3rd Place: Antonio Mena, "All Quiet on the Western Front"
• 4th Place: Lauren Pappert, "Hippie Movement"
• 5th Place: Jennifer Singer, "Steve Sisolak"
• 6th Place: Christopher Fregaue, "Free Speech on College Campuses"
• 7th Place: Tim Sharp, "Taxpayer Relief"

The first place prize winner won a 26-inch Panasonic LCD television courtesy of Avad. Companies who supplied donations for prizes included Avad, The Cheesecake Factory, Tacone Daquiri Bar and Grill, Green Valley Ranch, Regal Cinema, Elephant Bar, Limelight, Kirven Doakes, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, South Point Hotel-Casino, King Tut Indoor Mini-Golf, Bluegreen Club, Carl's Jr., Rebel Books, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Stephano's, Cafe Mitz, Ben & Jerry's, Hard Rock Hotel-Casino, Harley Davidson Café, Einstein's Bagels, Ritual Salon, King's Fish House, Rocky's Philly Cheesesteak, Panera Bread, and Chili's.

The Sanford I. Berman Debate Forum, UNLV's debate team, successfully wrapped up its first major regional debate tournament, advancing two teams to the elimination rounds.

On October 18–20, UNLV competed against several tough regional rivals at the Idaho State University debate tournament in Pocatello, Idaho. Austin Mueller and Travis Cochran racked up four wins in the preliminary rounds and advanced to the octafinal (sweet 16) round. Elliot Carr-Lee and Michael Eisenstadt also won four of their six preliminary debates. Carr-Lee and Eisenstadt advanced to the quarterfinal (great eight) round. Carr-Lee also received an award for being ranked as the eighth-best individual speaker at the tournament of more than 50 debaters.

See the article on the debate team in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Professor Joseph Valenzano is co-author, with former Communication Studies graduate student Lisa Menagatos, of "Benedict the Bifurcated: Secular and Sacred Framing of the Pope in Turkey," forthcoming in Journal of Media and Religion.

Professor Donovan Conley had an invited article published in the September 2008 issue of the journal Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. The article, "Virtuoso," was included in a forum on the 2008 presidential election. His article, "Righting the Commons in Red Rock Canyon," appears in the June 2008 issue.