The School of Communication Studies will kick off its spring Colloquium Series at 4 p.m. on Friday in Taylor Hall with a research presentation from Paul Sommer, an assistant professor of communication studies at Kent State Stark.

Sommer’s dissertation ‘The Communicative Accomplishment of Knowledge Work: An Investigation of the Domestic Construction Industry,’ focuses on how we communicate with others on project-based organizations like the construction industry.

“I’ll be presenting some findings regarding research from my dissertation, which is looking at a nation-wide survey that took a look at how we communicate what we know in construction organizations,” Sommer said. “And how that communication ultimately helps solves problems in the construction industry, to hopefully help make things a little more effective and efficient in the long run.”

Suzy D’Enbeau, an assistant professor of communication studies, and some of her colleagues created the colloquium series in January 2015, to foster a research community in the school.

“Part of generating high quality research is putting your ideas out there, and getting feedback and insights from other people,” D’Enbeau said.

In order to present research, one must meet a few requirements: must have a Ph.D in either communication or a related discipline and should be doing interesting research and be willing to share it.

“I’m interested in getting feedback from the communication studies faculty at Kent, in terms of how I’m approaching this knowledge management question in the construction industry, from a communication perspective,” Sommer said.

He also hopes people from other fields – perhaps architecture, knowledge management and information science – will be in attendance to help provide a different perspective to his research.

D’Enbeau said the program will consist of about 30 to 35 minutes of research presentations followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Future colloquiums will be held the first Friday of the month, March 4 and April 1. The presentations are free and anyone is welcome to attend.

Latisha Ellison is the CCI reporter for The Kent Stater, contact her at [email protected]