Introduction for Dr. Sandra Herndon
Distinguished Faculty Lecture
Culture and Communication
Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies
Ithaca College
By Patricia R. Zimmermann

Welcome, everyone.

On behalf of the Dean of the Division of International and Interdisciplinary Studies, Dr. Tanya Saunders, as well as the Culture and Communication Steering Committee-- Dr. Marie Garland, Dr. Sharon Mazzarella, and Dr. Robert Sullivan-- I am pleased to inaugurate the annual Culture and Communication Distinguished Faculty Lecture. We thank you all for joining us this evening at this very special event.

As you all aware, particularly our majors and minors in the Culture and Communication program in DIIS, Culture and Communication exists in a large, sprawling horizontal structure, involving all parts of the campus and faculty from many different disciplines. Our steering committee and Dean seek to embrace this horizontality and interdisciplinarity. Yet we are faced with the issue of how to embody and locate our program in the realm of vigorous intellectual inquiry. Like almost everything in Culture and Communication, this program tonight emerged out of discussion, debate, analysis and intense collegiality.

Upon hearing that Dr. Sandra Herndon had decided to enter her “terminal sabbatical” next year, we knew we needed a way to get one last blast from her penetrating mind and her fearless, speak truth to power spirit. As most of you are aware, Dr. Herndon was one of the primary rockets that launched the idea of this degree program. Her leadership gathered together a range of critical communication faculty from across campus to solve a problem at Ithaca College—the lack of an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree in communication that provided students with flexibility to explore and expand. Today, we have majors, minors, a steering committee, a dean, and even a website. Typical of her organizational savvy, Dr. Herndon has graciously allowed us to do all the work while she continues, in her own unique way, to prod and push. We expect to continue to hear from her during her retirement.

Dr. Sandra L. Herndon is professor and chair of the graduate program in the Roy H. Park School of Communications. She was one of the original designers of the Ithaca College culture and communication major in the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies.

Dr. Herndon has been a member of the Ithaca College faculty for 29 years. These 29 years have been distinguished by remarkable, courageous leadership in fighting for the rights of faculty in labor issues, for the rights of faculty to be empowered members of this shared workplace, for the rights of faculty to engage with each other intellectually and politically as the fire at the center of the academic enterprise. I think you will all agree that Dr. Herndon has served not only as a distinguished scholar, teacher, and colleague, but as the moral and political center of the Park School and campus.

Now for historical context. Dr. Herndon joined Ithaca College in 1976, initially appointed in the then Department of Drama-Speech, and continued with Speech Communication when the two areas divided. In 1982, she moved to become an at-large professor in the School of Communications. In 1985, she began her service as department chair in the Corporate Communication Department in the School of Communications.

For the last twelve years, she has provided her vision and leadership has head of the graduate program in communications. In 1993, she was promoted to professor. Those are the lines on her vitae. However, now I would like to ask you to join me in a deconstruction of the interstitial parts between the lines.

Dr. Herndon’s research over a 35-year career in the academy demonstrates that the insurgent, public intellectual never, ever stays within one discipline or one location. Her research has integrated the areas of organizational communication, qualitative research methods, gender in organizations, focus groups, and analysis of organizational cultures. All of her books, writings, public speaking, and consulting in the non-profit sector thread together questions of organizational structure, gender, and democratic communication processes. Her edited volumes include Qualitative Research: Applications in Organizational Life; Communication in Recovery: Perspectives on Twelve-Step Groups; and Talking to Strangers: Mediated Therapeutic Communication. She serves on numerous editorial boards and is past president of the Eastern Communication Association

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Herndon was part of a group of Ithaca College faculty in sociology, such as Dr. Hector Velez and others, in Introduction to Multicultural Studies and Intercultural and Interracial issues. In the late 1970s, she was one of the founders of the Ithaca College Feminist Caucus, an underground, free-form group of feminists from all sectors of the campus that served as an activist group as well as a support and mentoring network. This group was highly visible during the downsizing of the early 1990s in attempting to protect faculty women and people of color—the last hired—from being let go during that turbulent period on our campus.

Beyond our campus, Dr. Herndon has engaged in a vigorous amount of service activities and consulting. She served as the President of the Eastern Communication Association and as part of the Women’s Caucus of National Communication Association. She has done two important international study tours with communication colleagues to the People’s Republic of China and South Africa. She has served as President of the Board of Directors of the Tompkins County Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service, and President of the Board of Directors of the Alcohol and Drug Council. She has also served on the Human Rights Commission. For the last 29 years, she has engaged in consulting and training for local non-profits in communication skills. For all of this work both on and off campus, she has received important recognition: the 2003 Jack Lewis Award for Exemplary Service to Community Members in Crisis for accumulated service, the Ecroyd Excellence in Teaching Award from ECA, the Ithaca College Excellence in Service Award in 2002, the Distinguished Service Award from ECA.

But these official honors, accomplishments, recognitions and publications do not adequately represent Dr. Herndon’s enormous presence on our campus. There is an equally compelling and perhaps even more important unofficial story that deserves some discursive space tonight. When I first arrived as an ABD from University of Wisconsin Madison 24 years ago, I met Sandra through the feminist caucus, a bawdy, militant, brilliant group of women who provided intense feminist solidarity that took the edge off being surrounded by all white men and lots of media machines. I mentioned how alienated I felt, and how I felt that the context was pushing me to quietude, obedience, and silence. Sandra said something I will never forget, and that I have heard her repeat to a multitude of junior faculty: “Honey, if you are not making trouble, then you are in trouble.” That was the first of many Sandra koans, a mixture of zen, southern feminism, civil rights, moxie, militancy, and empowerment. Another one many of us in this room tonight have heard is “if you are going to shut up for six years in the hopes of getting tenure, then you don’t deserve tenure. You have to keep your mouth open and keep fighting all the time so people know you are here.” One of my personal favorites is Sandra’s benediction when you approach her about yet another political maelstrom on campus that attempts to destabilize the psyche: “Think Zen. It will pass. Be strong. Be loud. ”

And finally, and perhaps most importantly during this time of incredible attacks on academic freedom, Sandra has said, “If you are going to have tenure, what the heck do you have it for except to speak out? “ Sandra has always argued, ever since I first met her, that it is her responsibility to be on the forefront of issues on behalf of other untenured or newer, more vulnerable faculty. In fact, when, in the late 1970s, faculty organized a union and then President Whalen took out a full page ad denouncing this plan, Sandra assisted in protecting the identity of an untenured faculty organizer.

In preparing this introduction, I asked Dr. Herndon what organizational diagnostics she could share about the changes in the Park School during her decades here, and also as a fellow traveler/comrade in Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies. Always analyzing and provoking, always critical and yet moving forward, she observed that Park has expanded and opened up in terms of disciplinary areas, but has simultaneously become more isolated within itself and from the rest of the campus.

Her observations prompted me to think how much we will all miss her trenchant, honest, and political interventions when she leaves for the Pacific Northwest. The Emma Goldman of Ithaca College, Dr. Sandra Herndon is always the presence on campus that reminds us all that our job as intellectuals is endless critique, continual social and political struggle for justice, ribald and intense intellectuality, and courage that no power larger than us can minimize or destroy. Sandra, you will be missed.

Dr. Sandra Herndon’s lecture this evening will be followed by a celebration with a fine spread of food and conviviality. We hope you stay. Her lecture is entitled, “Seeing Organizations through Metaphor: ‘Little Boxes’ versus Webs and Weather.” It examines what metaphors tell us about changes in organizations and technology.

Please welcome Dr. Sandra Herndon.