Graduate Student Self-branding as Integrated Marketing Communication: The Call for Reflexivity

Self-branding among graduate students is explored conceptually in this essay as an extension of the notion of personal branding. This concept is tangential to impression management, sense-making, and face negotiation. A central contention pursued in this essay is the call for administrators to reconsider how to respond to the perceived need of student self-branding. Moreover, graduate student self-branding is compared to a respective form of IMC that utilizes the Kellogg School’s notion of contact points. The present essay explores theoretical reasons for why the increased individualized practice of graduate student self-branding occurs. Importantly, the essay invites communication administration into the conversation from a graduate student perspective. The increased demand, desire, and expectation for graduate students to self-promote their personal brand like a business is discussed in this essay through the lens of Beck’s notions of individualization, risk society, and reflexivity

A Rhetoric and Philosophy of Gifts

This project synthesizes a selected scope of rhetorical and philosophical perspectives of the gift. The research question is what the relationship between gifts and rhetoric might be. In order to approach this question, this project offers a review of related literature on the topic of gifts. It then provides analysis and discussion that contextualize the question. The project finally concludes by offering implications. The implications address why the question concerning the relationship between gifts and rhetoric matters for the larger landscape of international relations

A Semiotic Analysis of Iconicity in Japanese Manner Posters

This capstone conducts a synchronic textual analysis on four Japanese manner posters from the 1970s to 1980s. Manner posters have historically played a significant role in public behavior in Japanese cities since 1974. This capstone reveals how Japanese manner posters serve as communicative vehicles for commuters to follow rhetorical directives in public transportation sites. The purpose of this capstone is to reveal coded communication within the four posters that might be taken for granted by the passive viewer. Moreover, crowded Japanese contexts are ones that highly rely on nonverbal communication for civil cooperation. Several internationally iconic figures in Japanese manner posters are mainly under focus, as these icons serve as metaphors for people in everyday society

Critical Pedagogy Overseas

This essay fuses critical pedagogical concepts of selected scholars with real-life narratives of teaching English as a Second Language in Japan. This exposition of critical pedagogues, JET Programme participants and students addresses the challenges of practicing a critical pedagogy overseas. In particular, this essay explores the context of Japan and the subject of English as for future ESL teachers. Rather than practicing a consistent critical pedagogy regardless of geographical location, this essay claims that ESL teachers are in risk unconsciously practicing a contained pedagogy

Ethics, Giving, NPO\u27s, and COVID19

Video recording of a CWU Ethics Student Panel Nov 12, 2020 as part Introduction to Non-profit Leadership course