NCA CONFERENCE IN MIAMI,
USA, November 2003

Dr. Olga Matyash, RCA President on the conference in Miami:

It has become a good tradition for the Russian Communicative Association to take part in annual NCA conventions. This year the conference was held in Miami Beach, Florida and this location played a great role in attracting an exceptionally large number of both American and International participants. (Most of the sessions of the conference were held in historically renown hotel Fontainebleau (Blue Fountain) located on a beautiful beach with the blueness of the Atlantic Ocean right by the windows; for the conference participants this created a temptation to switch from theoretical discussions to a communication of a different kind). The forum as usual had a variety of theoretical, applied, instructional, training, and consulting directions in communication. Below are some of the results of the conference as far as RCA activity is concerned.

1. There were two sessions (Moderators: Dr. Matyash and Dr. Beebe, 12 speakers) on The Challenge of Introducing Modern Communication Practices and Theories: How to Reach out to a Changing Russia. The topics included:
   • Social and philosophical issues: problems of developing communication courses in Russia and introducing communication curricula in Russian institutions of higher education, globalization process of the communicative education and Russia's participation in this process, problem of transporting cultural and ideological values while adopting American curricula and textbooks on communication in Russia.
   • Instruction related issues: developing joint communication programs and analysis of experience of existing joint courses of American and Russian institutions of higher education. This topic has caused a motivated discussion because many American professors would like to work with their Russian colleagues and have joint courses.
   • Results of specific Russia-oriented communication research and studies.

   Part of papers from these sessions will be placed at the RCA website (http://russcomm.ru in the section Library). Some of the papers will be published in the RCA Vestnik (RCA Journal) and in "Current Issues in Communication Theory", a joint publication of RCA and St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University (Editor-in-Chief - M.I. Vershinin, prhuman@mail.spbstu.ru)

2. RCA President Dr. Olga Matyash chaired a meeting of the Russian Communicative Association. Among those present at the meeting were Steven Beebe, John Parrish-Sprowl, Donal Carbaugh, Michael Hazen, Nancy Jackson, David Williams, Marylyn Young, Barnett Pearce, Jurate Motiejunaite. The discussion was focused around the directions for future work and results of the work in the past year - what was and wasn't accomplished. One of the issues on the agenda was discussing RCA conference in 2004 and how American colleagues can participate in it. The America colleagues who participated in the last year conference said that 2004 conference could be more interactive, have more opportunities for personal interaction among Russian and American participants.
3. American colleagues are interested in filling the gaps in their knowledge about modern Russia (and overcome the void created during the cold war), they want to learn more about today's Russia and its social and cultural traditions in behavior and communication. In this sense, annual RCA conferences in Russia create favorable conditions for filling in those gaps. They are especially interested in various kinds of research and analysis on Russian communication practices in various contexts - organizational, political, mass media, interpersonal, family, education, etc. They are also greatly interested in getting to know Russian philosophical and theoretical heritage focused upon the nature of human communication. So, the Russian scholars are invited to participate in the NCA conference in Chicago next year in two thematic direction: (1) research in social communication practices in Russia, and (2) contribution of Russian intellectual traditions into understanding the nature of communication. If you are interested in presenting a paper at NCA conference in 2004, please contact Dr. Michael Hazen, NCA-RCA Unit Planner, Wake Forest University at hazen@wfu.edu. The deadline for submitting your proposals is February 16, 2004.
4. The RCA leaders realize that the biggest problem for most Russian scholars with regard to participation in NCA conferences is financial issues connected with traveling to the US. This is why Olga Matyash, RCA President, started to discuss this issues with Isa Engleberg, NCA President (these are primarily issues of how to reduce the participation cost for Russian scholars through reducing conference fee, boarding expenses, how to find financing for RCA in NCA, etc.). As Americans say "there is a long way to go," but NCA is aware of the necessity to attract more Russian participants and RCA will work on this issue.
5. Dr. Matyash met with Dr. Barnett Pearce, one of the authors of Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). Dr. Pearce expressed his interest in developing collaboration with Russian scholars and participating in the forthcoming RCA conference in Rostov, 2004; he submitted his papers for translation into Russian and publication. RCA organizers of the conference are planning to publish one of his papers in conference proceedings, the other in the collection "Current Issues in Communication Theory" as well as post both papers on the RCA website. Dr. Pearce's publication on CMM will be of special value to those who are interested in the development of current western communication theory in the paradigm of social constructionism.
6. The team of US RCA experts and reviewers was formed. Dr. Kate Ksobiech, Ph.D., Medical College of Wisconsin (kksobiec@mcw.edu), volunteered to be the chair of the group. We hope this challenging intercultural project will be mutually enriching for Russian manuscript authors and American reviewers.
7. Nancy Jackson, coordinator of a book distribution project would like to remind us that there are books available for RCA members. Those interested can contact her at nancyj@clemson.edu.