ESU Graduate Student Receives Top Awards at Conference

Tara Haney, a graduate student studying communication at East Stroudsburg University, received three Top Paper Awards at the 2026 Eastern Communication Association Conference. The conference was held earlier this month in Pittsburgh. Along with the three paper presentations, she also presented a poster in the graduate poster panel.

The first paper Haney presented was in the Kenneth Burke Society Interest Group. "The Laughing Place: A Pentad Analysis" focused on an analysis of racism in the Joel Chandler Harris story, "Brother Rabbit's Laughing Place" and Splash Mountain attraction in Disney parks. The analysis emphasized the story was based on African folklore and the attraction was based on one African folklore story and concluded there was no racist ideology in either the attraction or the story. The graduate poster presentation was a visual illustration of this paper.

The second paper Haney presented was in the interest group of Theory and Methodology [in communication]. The paper and presentation, "Communication is: Storytelling," was orally illustrated in how humans tell stories when communicating to be remembered. This point was illustrated by using urban legends to communicate social problems in society. Three theories were explained using two urban legends in the 10-minute presentation.

The final presentation, presented in the Communication and Ethics Interest Group, was "The Ethics of Whistleblowing: The Dr. Jeffrey Wigand Case." This presentation focused on Stephen Toulmin's Layout of an Argument to suggest that in this whistleblowing case within the cigarette industry, Dr. Wigand's actions were ethical because the industry was committing a corporate crime by failing to communicate to the public the bodily harm consumers may endure by using the product.

This was Haney's first professional/educational conference. "I entered four submissions to the conference because I was told this was a hard conference to get any papers accepted and figured the more [papers] submitted the greater the chance of acceptance. I was thrilled when I received the first acceptance and was overwhelmed with happiness once I received the notification that all of my submissions were accepted. This was the best experience, connecting with other graduate students as well as scholars from other universities during the four-day experience. I plan to submit more of my work for next year's conference. I am eager to represent ESU again."

Cem Zeytinoglu, Ph.D., professor of communication, who also presented a paper, accompanied Haney at the convention. Dr. Zeytinoglu stated "I am very proud of Tara. It was an impressive accomplishment for a graduate student to have such presentations at ECA, which is a very selective conference. She has already received invitations to apply for Ph.D. programs."

ESU's Master of Arts degree in communication is designed for working professionals as well as recent bachelor's degree graduates seeking to advance their careers or continue on for a doctorate. For more information, please contact graduate program coordinator Dr. Margaret Mullan by calling (570) 422-3136 or email [email protected].