Dr. Jennings Bryant

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Jennings Bryant, professor of communications and Reagan chair of broadcasting in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama, will become president of the 3,800-member International Communication Association at the close of its 52nd annual conference that convenes July 15-19 in Seoul, Korea.

As president-elect during 2001-2002, Bryant served as program chair for the Seoul conference and established this year’s theme, Reconciliation Through Communication.

In choosing the theme, Bryant recalled the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where athletes from both North and South Korea entered the stadium under the same flag. Bryant expressed a hope that the reconciliation he witnessed in Sydney signaled continued progress in Korea toward normalization of relationships between North and South Korea.

Bryant challenged ICA members to build on the idea that communication used effectively and creatively can be the tool to bridge differences and bring reconciliation in a variety of circumstances.

At Alabama, Bryant also serves as director of the Institute for Communication Research, and he holds a senior endowed chair. He earned the University’s Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award for 1999-2000. He is author or editor of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters and has delivered more than 200 conference papers.

Bryant’s public service efforts have included chairing the State of Alabama’s Information Age Task Force and serving on the State Education Technology Committee and the Task Force to Create a State Strategic Plan for Economic Growth.

ICA is an international association for scholars interested in the study of all aspects of human communication, as well as in the teaching of communication.

The group began more than 50 years ago as a small association of U.S. researchers and has since grown to 17 divisions and interest groups spanning the whole communications field, with more than 3,000 members in at least 65 countries. Today the association has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

For more information on the International Communication Association, please see www.icahdq.org.