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School of Communication Studies assistant professor, Suzy D’Enbeau and graduate student, Daniel Socha will be recognized with Top Paper awards from the National Communication Association (NCA). The award recipients will be awarded at the NCA Annual Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

D’Enbeau will receive the Top Paper Award in organizational communication for her paper, titled, “Unpacking the dimensions of organizational tension: The case of sexual violence response and prevention among college students.” Her paper discusses the research she conducted for nearly two years on how universities attend to the challenges of sexual violence response and prevention. D’Enbeau said that since most research, and public commentary, focus on student perspectives of sexual violence, she wanted to discuss the university perspective to offer a complete view of the issue.

“It feels great to be recognized at our discipline’s national conference for this research because I believe in these findings and the potential for this study to have a positive impact on how universities address sexual violence among college students,” D’Enbeau said.

Socha will receive the Top Student Paper Award in applied communication. Socha’s paper, titled, “Civilizing the uncivilized: A postcolonial analysis of refugee resettlement,” discusses discourse within refugee resettlement training resources. Socha completed a thematic analysis of training manuals that offers cultural orientation to refugees and found common themes of how refugees are portrayed. Socha began writing his paper in the Fall 2015 semester and submitted it to NCA in early 2016.

“I was so surprised to receive this award,” Socha said. “I worked really hard on this project and it feels wonderful to be recognized. I owe great thanks to my advisor, Suzy D’Enbeau, and to the School of Communication Studies for supporting me in this opportunity. It’s so nice to see research pay off in a tangible way.”

The School of Communication Studies director, Elizabeth Graham, was elated to hear that D’Enbeau and Socha were receiving these awards. 

 “This is great news,” Graham said. “This level of scholarly activity is essential to support a high quality program. Their work addresses consequential and timely topics. I am so proud of Suzy and Daniel.”

D’Enbeau and Socha will be attending the NCA Annual Convention, which will take place from Nov. 10-13, to accept their awards.