COMS doctoral student and teaching assistant Joe Mazer talks with student Megan Klingshirn at the COMS 301 Research Expo in mid-March. Mazer was recently awarded the Pamela Cooper award as the Outstanding Ph.D. Teaching Assistant by the Central States communication Association. Photo by Maise Crow

By Kristen Rapin, kr323705@ohio.edu

Doctoral student Joe Mazer has been awarded the Pamela Cooper Award for the Outstanding Ph.D. Teaching Assistant by the Central States Communication Association.

“Pamela Cooper is an amazing teacher and scholar in the communication discipline,” said Mazer. “I feel honored and emotionally moved to receive an award that bears her name. I hope to embody her practices as I progress in my teaching career.”

The Pamela Cooper Award is given annually to one M.A.-level graduate teaching assistant and one Ph.D.-level teaching assistant. Recipients receive the Cooper Award at the Central States Communication Association conference, which takes place April 1-5 in St. Louis, Miss., this year. The winners are recognized at the Hall of Fame Awards Luncheon and Business Meeting during the conference.

“I would characterize Joe’s courses as challenging, interesting, inspiring, multimedia-infused and always over-subscribed,” said Dr. Elizabeth Graham, one of Mazer’s co-advisors.

Mazer is the first Ohio University graduate student to be honored with the Cooper Award. Last year Mazer received recognition for his teaching from the Ohio University Center for Teaching Excellence, with the Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award.

“As a teacher, Joe works really hard to approach his class and assignments in ways that allow students to see a value in what they’re doing,” said Dr. Scott Titsworth, another one of Mazer’s co-advisors. “Joe’s approach to teaching and learning achieves an ideal mixture of rigor and student-centered pedagogy.”

Mazer earned an M.S. in Communication from Illinois State University in 2006 and a B.S. in Mass Communication from Mansfield University (Mansfield, PA) in 2003.

Ohio University undergraduate student to present papers at CSCA
A number of undergraduate students will also be featured at the Undergraduate Honors Conference in conjunction with the Central States Communication Association meeting.

Junior Jesse Branner had a paper on the rhetoric of Sarah Palin accepted to the conference. Branner also had a paper accepted that she wrote with classmates junior Megan Brown, and junior Meghan Simons. A third accepted paper was written by juniors Karlie Hawkins, Samantha Tiller and Courtney Williams.

All of the co-authored papers began as projects in Roger Aden’s COMS 235 last spring. The students then developed their papers in the fall and received PURF support to use in support of their travel to the conference.

“I’m very proud of the hard work that these students put into their research and exceptionally pleased to learn that others, outside of Ohio University, recognized the excellence of the students’ papers,” said Aden.

For more about the Central States Communication Association, visit http://www.csca-net.org/.