Mississippi State University’s Carol M. Lehman is the new president of the Southwest Region of the Association for Business Communication. Lehman, a professor of business communication in the College of Business and Industry for over 16 years, has been recognized twice by the business college with its Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. She also has been recognized as the Continuing Education Faculty Member of the Year at MSU.
Lehman is the co-editor of the textbook Business Communication, which has been used by more than a million students since its first publication in 1961. She has been instrumental in three further revisions of the classic text, which is currently in its 13th edition.
“It is a good experience,” Lehman said, describing her new
responsibility. “I have been involved for four years now and have made some contributions. In this new position I can hopefully add to what others before me have done.”
Having moved up through the ranks in the association, Lehman said she has a clear idea of things that can be done and would prove beneficial for the organization and its members.
Lehman said the association is an international organization committed to fostering excellence in business communication, scholarship, research, education and practice. Membership of the Association for Business Communication, like the field of business communication, is interdisciplinary, drawing from such disciplines as management, marketing, English, communication, linguistics and information systems.
The association is organized into five regions in the United States: East, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest and West.
It is also organized in four international regions: Canada; Europe; Asia and the Pacific; and Caribbean/Central/South America. Regions hold individual conferences in the spring (e.g., Helsinki [1999], San Juan [1999], Antwerp [2000], Kyoto [2000] and combine in the fall for a large ABC Annual Convention (Los Angeles [1999], Atlanta [2000], San Diego [2001]).
The ABC is affiliated with the Federation of Business Disciplines, which is composed of 12 regional and national business related organizations.
Lehman described the Association as “friendly” and against “formal” as most
such organizations tend to be. “The Association is an excellent medium for us
to develop a strong support group for constructive exchange of ideas and
concepts. It is an opportunity to interact and network with other academicians.”
Presented with the option of being on the national board of the Association as Board Member at large, Lehman chose rather to be the president of the region
citing time constraints due to her heavy work schedule as a full-time faculty
at the College of Business and Industry.
As president of the Southwest Region of the Association, her responsibilities
will include supervision of the other office bearers in the region, presiding
over the meetings and conferences organized by the Association, and most
significantly, establishing and implementing the procedures and systems for the
various awards conferred by ABC including “Outstanding Educator”
and “Outstanding Researcher”.
Lehman sais she is looking forward to the annual conference of her
group and the FBD, meeting this year at St.Louis, MO, from March 6 to March 8,
which she will preside over.