Crisis Communication Class Collaborates on Manuscript for Publication

Mary L Kish, 1/25/2007  ·  0 comments

The Crisis Technology Model, developed by Dr. Cory Young's Crisis Communication students, Fall 2006

It's not often that an academic journal receives a manuscript authored by an entire class of college students.  Dr. Cory Young's Crisis Communication class—all 20 members—collaborated during the fall 2006 on just such an endeavor. The paper, entitled "S.O.S. via SMS:  Text Messaging as a Communication Strategy in Hurricane Crises" was submitted on January 15, 2007 to the Southern Journal of Communication for consideration of inclusion in the Journal's special issue on communication practices surrounding hurricane crises.

According to Dr. Young, "The call for papers came out 3 weeks into the fall semester, and since 2 of our students were directly affected by Hurricane Katrina, I asked the students if they wanted to continue with the original syllabus, or create a research project and submit it for publication.  They agreed on the new project and chose the topic of text messaging during a crisis."

Part of the challenge was to find an organizing scheme that would support the timely completion of the project with full collaboration of all 20 students.  "I divided the class into 5 groups, each responsible for 1 section of the paper:  theoretical framework, literature review, data collection, data analysis, human subject review board application," explains Young.  "Then, one member of each of these groups was chosen to work on writing the paper.  Finally, one student was chosen to be the final editor."

The students interviewed presidents and crisis team members at 5 different universities and then, compared those data with the institutional crisis plan at Ithaca College.  Beyond the paper submission, the students' study has had some unanticipated results, including sparking the interest of the Ithaca College counseling center, which is looking into organizing a campus-wide student-led crisis team for natural disasters.

Listed here alphabetically, the students from the fall 2006 Crisis Communication class that co-authored the paper:  Jessica Blumert, Christopher Braley-Miller, Rachele Ceccorulli, Kelly Chan, Megan Crawford, Leanne Gabinelli, Madhava Hansen, Kellie Hoverter, Gina Irwin, Eddie Lemonier, Nik Mihaylov, A.J. Mizes, Basak Ozler, So-Hyeon Park, Katelin Ryan, Jason Soon, Nicole Spitalieri, Jeff Vincent, Quincey Williamson, Megan Woolley.