Legal Communication Students Win Top Paper Awards

Photo Submitted

Nabiha Khetani holding a photo of Silas Hunt from the day he sought admission to the U of A in 1948.

Four legal communication students won multiple top paper awards at the most recent meeting of the National Communication Association. Nabiha Khetani, Jake Woods, Kendal Curtis and Stormie Owens presented their research on the top papers panel for the Communication and Law division. Their paper was also named as the runner-up for the James L. Golden Outstanding Student Essay in Rhetoric Award.

Khetani et al.'s essay is titled, "Temporal Containment in Campus Public Memory: The Case of Silas Hunt." Their work explores how the U of A strategically deploys memories of Hunt to promote the values of diversity, equity and inclusivity on campus. They advocate for administrators to continue using memories of Hunt to have difficult conversations about anti-Black racism, especially in the wake of #BlackatUARK. The respondent described Khetani, Woods, Curtis and Owens as a "dream team" and praised them for using scholarship to promote racial justice at a predominantly white institution. 

Khetani et al.'s project was directed by Terrell Jake Dionne, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Communication, who had this to say: "It was a joy to mentor Nabiha, Jake, Kendal and Stormie as they completed this project. I was particularly impressed with Nabiha's presentation at the conference. Nabiha, who served as the principal investigator, attended the conference on behalf of the research team. She transformed an informative, 25-page research paper into an entertaining, 10-minute story. It was thrilling to watch live." 

Khetani et al. were joined at the conference by Grace Gilbert, Julianna McClendon and Wynne Grafton. These students were selected to present their paper, "Racializing Apologia, Digital Social Media, and the Court of Public Opinion," for the Student Section.