Communication department’s Dr. LeAnn Brazeal has been nominated for the National Communication Association’s Outstanding Mentor in Master’s Education award.

Nomination came from former students

Four former graduate students nominated Brazeal for the award. Brazeal said she mentored the group of former graduate assistants about 10 years ago as they were completing their master’s degrees at Kansas State University.

Brazeal, now an assistant professor at MSU, said the students have gone on to successful careers as faculty in the discipline, a couple of them also train graduate students themselves.

“Working with graduate students is my favorite part of being a basic course director, so to have this nomination come from a group of former graduate students is truly special. It’s an honor to be nominated,” she said.

The award will be presented at the National Communication Association convention, Nov. 19-22 in Las Vegas.

See Brazeal’s research

Brazeal’s recent research includes topics of civility in online discussions. She co-authored the paper Playing Nice: Modeling Civility in Online Political Discussions with Dr. Soo-Hye Han, assistant professor of communication studies at Kansas State University.

The research, published in the Communication Research Reports, explores why people can so easily say mean things to one another in online environments and ways to bring civility back to public discourse in those arenas.