New Year’s Resolutions 2021

This year was a strange year. COVID-19 kept us at home and made many of us sick – I had extended family members who caught COVID-19 and survived, thankfully. As many of you know, my life revolves around my work as a professor of communication studies and communications management at McMaster University and my work …

Meditating so that writing becomes fun and not work

Amazingly, I have stuck to two of my New Year’s resolutions: meditating and writing. Each day, I have been spending two hours (at least) focused exclusively on editing JPC or working on my book project. I have found that the time I spend writing and editing has become an inspirational and meditative time that I …

Just published: New issue of the Journal of Professional Communication!

The new issue of the Journal of Professional Communication (volume 3, issue 1) is published. You can read it here. It is almost had dot believe that we have now been publishing for three years. During that time, we have  showcased Canadian professional communication research in both official languages. We have also had research reported …

LAUNCHED TODAY: The Journal of Professional Communication (JPC)

The long wait is over. I am pleased to announce the launch of the Journal of Professional Communication (JPC) – the first international journal of its kind. After announcing the birth of JPC at the Canadian Public Relations Leadership Summit 2010 at the Old Mill in Toronto, we have spent over a year developing the journal. From …

Inaugural issue of JPC going live very soon!

I am just putting the final edits and final page layout tweaks for the inaugural issue of the Journal of Professional Communication. We have excellent content and many lively debates represented. We also have a serious policy white paper, Pathways to the Profession, which details educations pathways as outlined by the Canadian Public Relations Society. …

Big Progress Update on Journal of Professional Communication (JPC)!

Today is a day with some exciting news for the Journal of Professional Communication. We now have a good collection of manuscripts submitted for consideration, and we are sending them out for anonymous double-blind peer review. A particularly exciting news item is that our Editorial Board is now complete. It is a large board, but …

CSMM at McMaster has a new “Professional and Organizational Communication” stream and three new PR courses!

For those of you interested in what we’re up to in the communication studies program, at McMaster, a little update. We used to have three areas of concentration that students could specialise in: (i) Mass Media; (ii) Performance Studies; (iii) Language and Social Life. We have decided to do away with the linguistics component of …

How I became an academic: from tenure until the present

During the last month, I have been recounting the story of how I became an academic. In this, the final blog entry in this series, I discuss what it was like settling into the reality of becoming a middle-career academic and learning to savour life a little. During the last two years before tenure, I …

New editorial and research assistant: Natalie St. Clair.

I am very pleased to welcome Ms. Natalie St. Clair to COMM-Lab, where she will work with me as Editorial and Research Assistant this year. Natalie’s primary role will be to serve as Assistant Editor of the Journal of Professional Communication. Her responsibilities in this role will include assisting me, the Editor-in-Chief, with subscription management, bookkeeping, promotions, …