Story by Mikhayla DeMott, (ACJ)
Communicators from all over the U.S. attended this year’s Association for Communication Excellence conference. People traveled far and wide ranging from California to North Carolina and from Texas to Iowa, and all came to New Orleans. The conference kicked off on June 13 and came to a close the 16.
As usual, several people from various departments were there representing Kansas State University. The ACJ program sent five people, all presenting research. Dr. Lauri M. Baker, associate professor; Audrey King, instructor; Jeremy D’Angelo, graduate student and Anissa Zagonel and Mikhayla DeMott, both recent graduates. This year Cassie Wandersee, 2016 graduate of the master’s program, was presented with the outstanding thesis award.
“This year we were honored to be awarded the outstanding thesis award for the second year in a row,” Baker says. “We couldn’t be more proud of Cassie for this achievement.”
Baker, King and past department head, Dr. Kris Boone, presented research related social-media marketing engagement. King, Boone and Gloria Holcombe showcased their findings on Digital Asset Management systems. D’Angelo highlighted his interesting findings on citrus greening, while Zagonel presented Facepager application research. King shared some of her thesis research on proper grazing practices and DeMott presented research stemming from Jennifer Ray’s thesis on K-State Extension brand consistency, last year’s outstanding thesis winner.
Baker is the incoming research director and will serve through 2019.
We are looking forward to next year’s conference which will be held in conjunction with Ag Media Summit in Arizona.
For those unfamiliar with ACE, it is an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists. The organization offers professional development and networking for individuals who extend knowledge about agriculture, natural resources, and life and human sciences. Visit their website at https://www.aceweb.org/. ACE is the association that owns the premiere journal of agricultural communications, the Journal of Applied Communications. Visit them at http://journalofappliedcommunications.org/.
