Patrice M. Buzzanell, Ph.D., professor of Communication in the Brian Lamb School of Communication (and professor of Engineering Education by Courtesy) at Purdue University, is the 2014 Cowperthwaite Summer Visiting Scholar at the School of Communication Studies at Kent State. Buzzanell’s public presentation on Aug. 17 will address “Taking a Sideways Glance at Mentoring.” The graduate level seminar held Aug. 18-22 is titled “Designing Career in Everyday Life.” Both events will be held in Taylor Hall.
In "Taking a Sideways Glance at Mentoring,” Buzzanell will expand upon research on mentoring in business and academe. Buzzanell will also explore under-examined areas such as spontaneous mentoring (also known as episodic mentoring and mentoring moments), the place of non-human mentors, and an evolutionary developmental network perspective.
The seminar on "Designing Career in Everyday Life” has an organizational communication base but will also address different communication and interdisciplinary directions into new media and Internet, popular culture, creative industry and knowledge work, lifespan issues (infancy through retirement), work-family communication, and dynamics of difference with local and international arenas of career. Theory and research as well as practical strategies for career will be included as discussion topics.
Buzzanell’s research centers on the everyday negotiations and structures that produce and are produced by the intersections of career, gender, work-family and communication such that people construct resilience and career aspirations, particularly in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The editor of three books and the author of more than 130 articles and chapters, Buzzanell has been published in journals including Communication Monographs, Human Communication Research, Communication Theory, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, and Human Relations as well as in handbooks on organizational, professional, family, conflict, ethics and gender communication and proceedings in engineering education.
A former editor of MCQ and associate/special issue editor for Communication Studies and the Southern Communication Journal, Buzzanell has been an editorial board member for 22 national and international journals and handbooks as well as numerous special issues. She also is an Advisory Board member for MCQ and for Sage Open.
Buzzanell earned her doctorate from Purdue University, her master’s degree from Ohio University and her Bachelor of Science from Towson University, graduating summa cum laude.
