Recent Publications
Ruiz-Mesa, K. & Broeckelman-Post, M.A. (2023) Creating equitable and inclusive basic course classrooms: A response essay. Basic Communication Course Annual, 35, Article 9. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/bcca/vol35/iss1/9
Ruiz-Mesa, K. (2022). “We’re talking about race!” Communicative practices of chief diversity officers. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 50(3) 309-326. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2022.2083432
Benavides, C. M., Sidiqi, M., Ruiz-Mesa, K., & Ribera, D. (2022). Supporting first generation Latinx freshmen: The importance of university resources, faculty, and peers. Journal of Latinos and Education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2022.2141748
Ruiz-Mesa, K. (2021) Reaction needed: diversity, intersectionality, and communication pedagogy, Communication Education, 70 (2). https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2021.1912794
Ruiz-Mesa, K., & Broeckelman-Post, M.A. (2020). Inclusive public speaking: Communicating in a diverse world. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press.
Inclusive Public Speaking is an innovative textbook that intentionally foregrounds diversity and inclusion in teaching traditional and contemporary topics in public speaking. From formal class speeches to small groups, dyads, and professional settings, each chapter is infused with scholarship about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Written by two experienced introductory communication course directors, the text is designed to serve students across the nation, using rural, urban, and suburban examples to connect students to familiar situations and to the varied experiences in classrooms throughout the United States. Each chapter is written in accessible language and engages student experiences and prior knowledge as the starting place for learning. Throughout the text, students are invited to reflect on their intersectional identities and experiences and to explore how their social positions inform their communication decisions and interactions. By creating unique chapters that can be taught individually during each week of the semester or combined for the quarter and trimester usage, the authors designed this textbook with student learning and instructors in mind.
Anderson, L., Ruiz-Mesa, K., Hosek, A., Waldbuesser, C, Hall, J., Broeckelman-Post, M. (2020). I second that emotion: A collaborative examination of emotions felt in course administration work. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 1-28. DOI:10.1177/0891241619873130
Course administrators hold a unique position in academe—one that requires high levels of emotion management as part of the job. This research utilized a collaborative autoethnography to explore how workplace emotions were experienced in the basic communication course. The experiences were presented through vignettes written and analyzed by seven course administrators from programs across the United States. Four themes emerged from the vignettes: (1) acting perpetually positive, (2) (un)catching emotion, (3) rushing for time, and (4) switching roles. Each theme highlighted the multiple, and sometimes competing, responsibilities/expectations embedded in the administrative role. This research offers a discussion of each theme and informs five recommendations for managing emotions and emotional labor within course administration.
Broeckelman-Post, M., Hunter, K.M., Westwick, J.N., Hosek, A., Ruiz-Mesa, K., Hooker, J., & Anderson, L. B. (2020). Measuring essential learning outcomes for public speaking. Basic Communication Course Annual, 32, Article 4. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/bcca/vol32/iss1/4
Basic Course Directors (BCDs) are typically expected to assess course learning outcomes, but few formal guidelines and resources exist for new BCDs. As one part of a larger, multi-methodological assessment tool development project, this manuscript maps existing quantitative measures onto the six essential competencies and associated learning outcomes established by the Social Science Research Council Panel on Public Speaking. This manuscript compiles dozens of measurement resources, aligned by outcome, and also identifies areas where future assessment measures development is needed. Although there are many measures available for evaluating outcomes related to creating messages, critically analyzing messages, and demonstrating self-efficacy, there are measurement gaps for outcomes related to communication ethics, embracing difference, and influencing public discourse.
Ruiz-Mesa, K. (2020) Inclusive public speaking: A contemporary approach to teaching communication (invited submission). Association of College and University Educators. https://community.acue.org/blog/inclusive-public-speaking/
Jensen, P.R., Cruz, J., Eger, E.K., Hanchey, J., Gist-Mackey, A.N., Ruiz-Mesa, K., Villamil, A. (2020). Pushing beyond positionalities and through “failures” in qualitative organizational communication. Management Communication Quarterly, 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318919885654
In this forum, we specifically explore the transversal issues of an ethnographer’s identity/ies across organizational contexts, including homeless shelters, employment agencies, African street markets and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), exiled Cuban communities, education programs, and large corporations. By engaging these topics from our respective positionings, we explore how fieldwork contexts interact with social identity/ies, ambivalently facilitating and hindering the research process.
Ruiz-Mesa, K., & Hunter, K. M. (2019). Best practices for facilitating difficult dialogues in the basic communication course. Journal of Communication Pedagogy, 2, 134-141. https://doi.org/10.31446/JCP.2019.23
Effective facilitation of classroom dialogue can stimulate open discussion and debate, challenge students to consider diverse perspectives, and promote critical student reflection and growth. Unfortunately, some instructors may be hesitant to approach controversial topics, for fear of losing face or risking chaos in the classroom. By learning and practicing established facilitation techniques, teachers can develop confidence and competence in harnessing the pedagogical power of difficult dialogue while maintaining classroom cohesion and community. This article provides 10 best practices for facilitating difficult classroom dialogues. These practices equip instructors with resources for building community, maintaining classroom immediacy, and grappling with disagreements without destroying relationships and classroom climate.
Magruder, E.D., Scott, W., Willard, M., Ruiz-Mesa, K., & Drew. S. (2019). Transparency to close opportunity gaps in the largest state system: A pilot experiment. In M.A. Winkelmes, A. Boye, and S. Tapp (Eds.) Transparent design in higher education teaching and leadership. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
What if the country’s largest state university system, with an initiative to double graduation rates while closing equity gaps, adopted Transparent Assignment Design (TAD) across institutions? That’s the question four faculty developers, one in the system office and three on campuses, asked in late 2016, a few months after the California State University (CSU) announced targets for Graduation Initiative 2025: increasing four-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time, first-year students from 19% to 40% and two-year rates for transfer students from 31% to 45%, while completely eliminating equity gaps. The authors sough to demonstrate that faculty development produces changes in faculty teaching practices that in turn lead to improved student outcomes. We needed a scalable teaching and learning intervention that could contribute to the CSU’s completion goals and its equity goals while allaying concerns that the graduation initiative would reduce academic rigor and increase faculty workload. This chapter offers an overview of our implementation and its impact on students, faculty and faculty developers. It concludes with our insights about how other state systems or cohorts of institutions might benefit from adopting transparent assignment design.
Kurtin, K.S, Ruiz-Mesa, K, Cornejo, V., & Covarrubias. (2019). Chapter 9: Mass Communication: Parasocial influence on college student’s interracial relationships. In K. Kurtin (Ed.) Diving Deeper Into Communication: An Introduction and Beyond.
The project explored how media figures can produce a form of social interaction with viewers, not dissimilar to an interpersonal social interaction. The authors found that audience members are not passive observers, but participants in a quasi-social interaction, coined a “parasocial relationship (PSR)” (Horton & Wohl, 1956). Horton and Wohl (1956) described parasocial relationships as one-sided relationships that viewers establish with actors in media, and urged other researchers to explore and “learn in detail how these parasocial interactions are integrated into the matrix of usual social activity” (p. 225). In addition to the aforementioned observable modes of interpersonal interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication, the current research considers the internal processes of how an individual understands their identities, media portrayals of racially diverse identities, and interracial parasocial relationships.
Ruiz-Mesa, K., & Broeckelman-Post, M. A. (2018). Making the case for the basic communication course in general education. Basic Communication Course Annual, 30, Article 13. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/bcca/vol30/iss1/13
Authors were asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who: (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program. In this essay, the authors discuss the academic, career, and social benefits stemming from strong effective communication skills.
Broeckelman-Post, M. A., & Ruiz-Mesa, K. (2018). Best practices for training new graduate teaching assistants. Journal of Communication Pedagogy, 1, 93-100. DOI:10.31445 https://csca-net.org/aws/CSCA/asset_manager/get_file/217368?ver=88
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are often the first college instructors who new students meet when they arrive for their first day of class, and as instructors and as students, GTAs are the future of the discipline. As such, GTAs need to receive comprehensive training in a variety of pedagogical, procedural, and professional areas to help graduate students continue to develop as instructors and, eventually, into full-time faculty. To assist basic course directors, department chairs, and faculty in creating and supporting a comprehensive and ongoing GTA training program, this article provides 10 best practices for training new GTAs who will be teaching introductory communication courses.
Ruiz-Mesa, K. (2018). Did you just see that? Using critical communication pedagogy and observation to teach about identity and social norms. In J.S. Seiter, J. Peeples, & M.L. Sanders (Eds.) A G.I.F.T.S. collection: Activities for teaching communication in the classroom. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin.
As a “practical discipline” (Craig, 1989, p. 97), communication offers opportunities to learn about theory through everyday observations and interactions. Through observations at regularly visited locations, students are able to learn: 1) more about each other; 2) critical communication pedagogy (Fassett & Warren, 2007); 3) how to critically examine hegemonic discourses on gender and other identities; 4) to evaluate the communicative processes and normative assumptions present in observations; 5) qualitative research practices; 6) about creating and presenting research posters. This chapter provides an original class activity to help students uncover and critical analyze social norms present in their daily lives.
Broeckelman-Post, M.A., & Ruiz-Mesa, K. (2018). Measuring college learning in public speaking. Learning in Higher Education, Social Science Research Council. highered.ssrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018.10-MCL-in-Public-Speaking-Report.pdf
The introductory communication skills course that meets a general education requirement on many campuses, often referred to within the discipline as the Basic Course, has long been a core element of most communication programs and the subject of many national surveys. The most recent national survey found that the two most popular forms of the introductory communication course at colleges and universities that responded to the survey were public speaking (61%) and hybrid communication courses that include interpersonal, group, and public speaking skills (27%), which has been the case for the past 40 years (Morreale, Myers, Bucklund, & Simonds, 2015). Our charge here is to explicate the core concepts, competencies, and outcomes that should be included in any public speaking course to help develop a next generation of assessment tools that can be useful across public speaking programs.
Publications in Press
For upcoming publications, please review current CV.