91¶ÌÊÓƵ

91¶ÌÊÓƵ Speech Team wins big in its first PKD National competition

Nine students from the Weber State Speech Team competed in the four-day Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament, the largest tournament of the season, with over 1,340 entries from 80 schools across the country. The team achieved a sweepstakes award, ranking in the top 15% schools of the nation in both speech and debate events despite having mostly novice competitors who only participated in one style of debate format compared to teams with 20 or more students competing in various types. A number of students also earned excellence awards and/or made it into the final rounds of competition. Individual awards included:

• Sophie Beck: Excellence Award in Informative Speaking
• Kyle Housley: Quarterfinalist in Informative Speaking, Quarterfinalist in Prose Interpretation, Octofinalist in Novice IPDA Debate
• Rebecca Brown: Dramatic Interpretation Quarterfinalist, Excellence Award in Interviewing
• Jazmyne Olson: Quarterfinalist in JV IPDA Debate
• Nessie Aviles: Excellence Award in Interviewing
• Akir Rowe: Excellence Award in Interviewing, Excellence Award in JV IPDA Debate

91¶ÌÊÓƵ will have its final tournament of the year on April 9-11, an Individual Debate event. The team will then spend spring and summer preparing new speeches and performances for the 2021-22 season. Director Mark Galaviz and Volunteer Coach Kayla Griffin expect to ramp up participation and hopefully compete in person in the fall. Dr.

Becky Johns, a 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Communication Department faculty member, helped judge the most recent tournament. Public Relations and Advertising student Jazmyne Olson compiled the information and helped write this news item.

Two Communication majors present at 91¶ÌÊÓƵ undergraduate research symposium

Two Communication majors were selected to participate in the 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Office of Undergraduate Research Symposium on March 29. Callie Oyama presented her research mentored by Dr. Sheree Josephson. It was titled “The Art of Plagiarism: Sampling in the 21st Century.” Abigail Robinson, who was mentored by Dr. Sarah Steimel, prepared a poster to illustrate her research project titled “College Student Stress and Communication.”

91¶ÌÊÓƵ policy debate team selected to compete in National Debate Tournament

The policy debate team of Zoe Thomae and Bailey Brunyer, both juniors majoring in political Science, are one of the 74 teams selected to compete in the National Debate Tournament. The NDT is an invitation-only event held once a year with teams from across the United States competing for the championship. The NDT is the intercollegiate policy debate equivalent of qualifying to compete in the NCAA Basketball Championship during March Madness. Thomae and Brunyer extend the decade-long consecutive streak of Weber State Debate’s selection to the NDT and exemplify the commitment to competitive excellence with the intercollegiate policy debate team.

Public Relations & Advertising student organizes virtual community film festival

Shawn Bennion, a Public Relations & Advertising major whose family runs the North Ogden location of Walker Cinemas, is organizing a second virtual community film festival, open to the public to submit homemade movies 10 minutes or shorter. Bennion said he didn’t want the community to forget about movies and the owners and employees experiencing a hard time as theaters were shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theater received 12 submissions and locals voted to determine a winner last June, and Bennion is currently working with a team of his peers from Ogden Peak Communications to expand the pool of participants for the second film festival. The submission deadline for this year’s film festival is April 18, and the community will be able to view the films at the Perry location of the theater from April 26-28. This year, first-, second- and third-place winners will earn a cash prize because local businesses signed on to sponsor the festival. Full instructions for entering the competition can be found on the Walker Cinema Facebook Page. To read a story about Bennion in the Standard Examiner, see

Public Relations & Advertising student helps plan Expect the Great conference

Sydney Fairclough, a Public Relations & Advertising major, helped plan the 10th annual Expect the Great conference, scheduled for Friday and Saturday. It is meant to help build community and prepare Black high school and college students to succeed in higher education and their careers. Fairclough is one of thousands of Black students who grew up in Utah’s overwhelmingly white schools, an experience she said makes many Black students feel isolated. Expect the Great serves multiple purposes for Utah’s often marginalized Black students, according to Fairclough. She said it connects Black students to other Black students, shows them how they can find success through multiple activities and information sessions and introduces them to successful Black community members, who can sometimes be hard to see. She was featured in a Standard Examiner article that can be read at

Weber State Debate busy with end-of-year debates, events

Several Weber State debaters are participating in end-of-year debates, and the team is sponsoring a webinar about the harms of human trafficking. 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Debate will be represented by Loane Mwiza and Hannah Phelps at the Cross-Examination Debate Association National Championship Tournament on April 9-12. This will be their first tournament debating together, and it will be Mwiza’s first policy debate tournament in the United States as she is joining from Rwanda. Due to that connection, 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Debate will host an international public debate with iDebate Rwanda on April 15 from 1-3 p.m. Bailey Brunyer and Mwiza will debate a two-person team from Rwanda on a mutually selected topic. Finally, 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Debate will host a public consciousness raising webinar event on the significant harms of human trafficking on April 10 from 11 a.m. to noon. Students have designed a series of materials, games and invited speakers to discuss the global problem of human trafficking and local intersections of the matter of concern in Utah. Details are forthcoming.

Communication professors present at 91¶ÌÊÓƵ’s Faculty Symposium

A number of Communication faculty presented at the Teaching and Learning Forum's 2021 Faculty Symposium: A Teaching and Learning Celebration. Dr. Anne Bialowas and Dr. Sarah Steimel presented the interactive roundtable titled "Looking Back and Looking Forward: Reflections on Teaching During a Pandemic." Dr. Hailey Gillen Hoke, Dr. Michael Ault and Dr. Sarah Steimel were on the interactive roundtable titled "Teaching Research Methods Virtually." Dr. Jean Norman and Dr. Susan Hafen were on the discussion panel titled "Using Avatars to Enhance Learning Outcomes." Dr. Colleen Packer, the director of the Teaching and Learning Forum, was instrumental in organizing the symposium.

MPC director presents research at Central States Communication Association convention

Dr. Sarah Steimel, director of the Master of Professional Communication program, presented a research paper and participated on a discussion panel at the Central States Communication Association’s annual conference held virtually in March. Her paper was titled "Negotiating Maternity Leave in the Context of Pregnancy Loss." The discussion panel she participated was titled "Pedagogical Pivots for Online Teaching: Best Practices."