Theresa Castor, PhD

Teaching Interests

Her teaching areas include Organizational Communication, Crisis Communication, Group Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Language in Human Communication, Communication Theory and Research.

Research Interests

Dr. Castor's research work examines discourse in meetings and organizational and group decision-making. She has studied nonprofit boards, school boards, university governance, public community development meetings, and student discussion groups. In addition to her work on decision-making, she has also written on communication and social constructionism. Her work has been published in Management Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Business Communication, Discourse Studies, Communication Yearbook, the International Journal of Public Participation, and the Electronic Journal of Communication.

• (2024) Approaches to Qualitative Research on the Communicative Constitution of Organizations. Sage, 103-121 pp.
• (2023) Castor, T., Gregg, M. K., & McBride, M. (2023). Essential Individual and Organizational Decision-Making for Smart Manufacturing. The 19th International Conference on Intelligent Environments, 1-6 pp.
• (2022) The umbrella of discourse analysis and its role in CCO. Routledge
• (2022) Advocating for Experiential Learning Programs as Change Agents in Higher Education: Imagining a Justice Orientation that Centers Students and Partners while Enriching Practice. Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education, 13 pp. PDF
• (2022) Experiential Learning Educators as Tempered Radicals and Social Change Agents in Higher Education: The NSEE Fellows Program as Reflective Practitioner-Scholars. Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education, 9 pp. PDF
• (2022) Identity and Community Among First Generation Students: High Impact Practices and Communicating BelongingThroughout Department Design. Stylus, 19 pp.
• (2021) Deciding. De Gruyter Mouton
• (2021) Smart Cities – Fundamental Concepts. Springer-Verlag publishers
• (2020) On streams and lakes: Metaventriloquism and the technologies of water controversy. Language and Dialogue, 29-49 pp.
• (2020) Water, Rhetoric, and Social Justice: A Critical Confluence. Lexington
• (2020) On streams and lakes. Language and Dialogue, 29-48 pp.
• (2019) The varieties of (more or less) formal authority. Routledge
• (2019) Taking the Moral High Ground: Avoiding Accounts as a Practice for Being Uncompromisingly Principled. Journal of Pragmatics, 116-129 pp.
• (2018) Climate Risks as Organizational Problems: Constructing Agency and Action. Peter Lang, 128 pp.
• (2018) Sustainability and Textual Extensions of Institutional Discourse: Testing the Great Lakes Compact. Critical Sociology, 341-356 pp.
• (2017) Legislating the Great Lakes: Socially constructing water through congressional discourse. Routledge, 143-154 pp.
• (2017) Metacommunication. International Communication Association and Wiley-Blackwell, 10 pp.
• (2017) Ambiguity. International Communication Association and Wiley-Blackwell, 11 pp.
• (2016) Discursively constructing the Great Lakes freshwater. Purdue University
• (2016) The materiality of discourse: Relational positioning in a fresh water controversy. Communication Research and Practice, 334-550 pp.
• (2016) The LOCs and the shift to student-centered learning. Communication Education, 493-495 pp.
• (2016) Metacommunication during Disaster Response: ‘Reporting’ and the Constitution of Problems in Hurricane Katrina Teleconferences. . Management Communication Quarterly, 472-502 pp. PDF
• (2015) Accusatory Discourse. International Communication Association and Wiley-Blackwell, 20-24 pp. PDF
• (2013) Learning by the “Seat of Your Pants”: The Socialization of Nonprofit Board Members. Peter Lang, 85-104 pp. PDF
• (2010) Disasters as social interaction. Communication Currents, 1 pp. PDF
• (2009) What are We Going to “talk about” in this Public “meeting”?: An Examination of Talk about Communication In the North Omaha Development Project (Available online: http://www.iap2.org/associations/4748/files/Journal_10January_LeighterCastor.pdf). International Journal of Public Participation, 57-75 pp. PDF
• (2009) 'It’s just a process': Questioning in the Construction of a University Crisis. Discourse Studies , 179-197 pp. PDF
• (2009) Tracing our steps through communication social construction: Six propositions for how to go on. Socially Constructing Communication , 225-243 pp. PDF
• (2009) Why Wiki?: Using Wiki Software as a Resource for Language and Social Interaction (Available online: http://www.cios.org/getfile/V19123_EJC). Electronic Journal of Communication, 35 pp. PDF
• (2008) Public Meetings. International Communication Association, 2 pp. PDF
• (2008) Social construction in communication: Revisiting the conversation . Communication Yearbook, 3-39 pp. PDF
• (2008) Students’ Metaphors as Descriptors of Effective and Ineffective Learning Experiences. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 103-128 pp. PDF
• (2007) Language use during school board meetings: Understanding controversies of and about communication. Journal of Business Communication , 111-136 pp. PDF
• (2006) Organizations as hybrid forms of life: The implications of the selection of agency in problem-formulation. Management Communication Quarterly, 570-600 pp. PDF
• (2004) Capstone as Stepping Stone. Communication Teacher, 4 pp.

Teaching Awards

• (2021) National Society for Experiential Education Fellow — National Society for Experiential Education
  Part of the inaugural cohort of NSEE Fellow.
• (2020) NSEE Fellow — National Society for Experiential Education
  The NSEE Fellows program seeks to develop a community of scholarship for scholar-practitioners and graduate students working in the experiential education field.
• (2018) Community Engaged Learning and Research Award — UW-Parkside
• (2018) Outstanding Community-Based Learning Project — UW-Parkside Center for Community Engagement and Continuing Education
  Received award for community-based project partnership with Hospice Alliance. The CBL project involved students in Health Communication partnering with Hospice Alliance to interview hospice patients to develop digital legacy videos.

Research/Creative Awards

• (2021) Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award — UW-Parkside
• (2018) Top Paper in Communication Education — Central States Communication Association
  Co-authored paper with Adrienne Viramontes title, "Negotiating Difference, Identity, and Community among First Generation Students and First Generation" was ranked as the Top paper submitted to the Communication Education Division of CSCA.
• (2015) Top Interactive Display — Organizational Communication Division/International Communication Association
  This project takes up the issue of the role of time and timing in the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) by drawing from Bakhtin’s (1991) concept of responsiveness. When CCO theorizing has taken up the issue of time, the focus has tended to be oriented toward the past and articulating how the past is brought into the present. I advocate for a dual focus by including responsiveness to an anticipated future as an aspect of how organizations are communicatively constituted. The case of the state of Georgia leadership’s response to a late January 2014 winter storm is examined.
• (2014) Distinguished Edited Book Award — Applied Communication Division, National Communication Association
  My co-authored chapter (with Mary Jo Jiter), "Learning by the 'seat of your pants': The socialization of nonprofit board members," was one of the chapters in the award-winning edited book, "Volunteering and Communication: Studies from Multiple Contexts" edited by M. Kramer, L. Gossett, & L. Lewis , published by Peter Lang.
• (2014) Top Paper in Organizational Communication — Organizational Communication Division, International Communication Association
  The co-authored paper, "Metacommunication during Disaster Response: ‘Reporting’ and the Constitution of Problems in Hurricane Katrina Teleconferences," received the Top Paper award from the Organizational Communication Division of the International Communication Association.

University Service

• (2015) Committee Member — HLC-Student Learning Outcomes Group
• (2014) Committee Chair — Academic Achievement Assessment Committee
• (2013) Committee Chair — Self-Study Criterion 4 Committee
• (2012) Workshop Organizer — Assessment Workshop
• (2012) Workshop Organizer — Assessment Workshop
• (2012) Program Organizer — UW-Parkside Liberal Education Essay Contest Organizer
• (2011) Committee Chair — Committee on Teaching and Learning

Professional Service

• Officer, Secretary — International Association for Dialogue Analysis
• Editorial Review Board Member — Management Communication Quarterly
• (2019) Editorial Review Board Member — Journal of International and Intercultural Communication
• (2019) Program Organizer — International Association for Dialogue Analysis
• (2015) Board of Directors of a Company — International Communication Association
• (2014) Program Organizer — Language and Social Interaction Division, ICA
• (2013) Program Organizer — Language and Social Interaction Division, ICA
• (2013) Officer, Other Officer — Language and Social Interaction Division of the International Communication Association.
• (2012) Editorial Review Board Member — Women's Studies in Communication

Public Service

• (2018) Committee Member — Gateway Technical College Institutional Review Board

UW System Service

• (2016) Committee Member — System Advisory Group for the Liberal Arts

COMM 303 - Organizational Communication
UWP 294 - Work-Based Learning