Honoring Linda L. Putnam’s Contributions to Communication Research

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Professor Linda L Putnam will be retiring as of June, 2015, after a very long and extremely productive and influential career, in several disciplines and several research areas, collaborating with and mentoring a stunning range of faculty, students, and practitioners, and contributing to the operation and progress of a wide variety of conferences, associations, journals, handbooks, and programs. Her over 160 publications (articles, book chapters or encyclopedia entries, and 11 books) cover an extraordinary range of areas: overviews and theories; groups and organizations; organizational discourse; negotiation and conflict management; gender, negotiation, and organizational communication; and general communication studies. Dr. Putnam’s recent research analyzes conflict framing in multiparty environmental disputes, especially in the ways that different stakeholders make sense of complex, seemingly intractable conflicts. To fund this endeavor, she has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Her research, publications and teaching have received numerous awards; she has served a variety of academic associations and editorial boards generously and continuously (see her biographical summary at the end of this proposal); and she has been honored through association boards, fellowships, and presidencies.

We would like to acknowledge and celebrate Linda at the ICA conference. We propose a panel providing a brief overview of just some of the highlights of Linda’s academic contributions, from the perspective of leading Communication scholars in organizational communication, feminist studies, language and social interaction, and negotiation and conflict management. Each presentation will be a brief five-minute focus on different specifics aspects of Professor Putnam’s contributions, followed by Linda’s own thoughts on these, and ending with questions and comments from the audience.

This overview and thoughtful commentary will be of great interest to the Organizational Communication and the Feminist Divisions in particular, to graduate students interested in knowing more about the development of these research and theory areas at ICA, and ICA members in general who wish to honor a central figure, and central research areas, in communication research.

Sub Unit

• Sponsored Sessions

Cosponsors

• Feminist Scholarship

• Organizational Communication

Chair

• Ronald E. Rice, U of California - Santa Barbara

Participants

• Karen Lee Ashcraft, University of Colorado Boulder

• Boris H. J. M. Brummans, University of Montreal

• Patrice M. Buzzanell, Purdue U

• Gail Fairhurst, U of Cincinnati

• Dennis K. Mumby, U of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Marshall Scott Poole, U of Illinois

Respondent

• Linda L. Putnam, U of California - Santa Barbara