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 Dr. Bates will be announced as the recipient of the
CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication on
March 15 during the 2019 CCCC Annual Convention in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Dissertations for this award are evaluated based on five criteria:
originality of research, contribution the research makes to the
field, methodological soundness of the approach used, awareness of
the existing research in the area studied and overall quality of the
writing.
To be considered for the award, applicants must submit a letter of
nomination from a dissertation committee member emphasizing the
significance of the research for technical communication studies as
well as an extended abstract and a copy of the dissertation.
Dr. Bates' nomination came from Dr. Elise Verzosa Hurley, assistant
professor of English at Illinois State University, where Dr. Bates
received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Composition, and Technical
Communication.
"A lot of the people who have won in the past are people whose
scholarship I really admire and who have shaped and influenced what
I have learned as a scholar," said Bates. "It was an honor to find
out I had won."
Dr. Bates' dissertation specifically looks at people in marginalized
communities that are disproportionally affected by environmental
risks, more specifically, environmental health problems, and the
tactics of community activists to address these local environmental
problems.
"Generally, people are most affected because of race, socioeconomic
status, gender, disability and citizenship status," said Bates. "I
look at examples of communities where people (often women who notice
their children's health problems) start to talk with other people
and realize it's not just them, that other people in their community
have health problems. I look at their ways of detecting issues, how
they gather stories and how they try to persuade people in positions
of power that there is a problem."
For her dissertation, Dr. Bates specifically looked at two extended
case studies. The first was a successful environmental intervention
in which community activists in the Little Village neighborhood near
Chicago, Ill., were able to shut down two heavily polluting
coal-fired power plants in their community. The second case study
was the activist efforts in Flint, Mich., to bring awareness of the
concerns about water contamination in the city despite ongoing
denials by city and state officials.
"The duties of a full-time faculty member, especially one who is not
only teaching but also coordinating Millikin's first year writing
program, make it extraordinarily challenging to find the time and
energy to complete a dissertation," said Millikin Provost Dr. Jeff
Aper. "But Dr. Bates has not only proven to be an outstanding
faculty member who was able to get all of this accomplished, she
wrote a dissertation recognized as the best of the best by her peers
across the nation. I'm very glad to see her receive this
well-deserved recognition. This is a truly noteworthy accomplishment
and we are all very proud to count her as a colleague here at
Millikin."
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Dr. Randy Brooks, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at
Millikin, is most impressed with how Dr. Bates' research supports Millikin's
approach to writing as Performance Learning.
"We teach students in our highly regarded first year writing program that
writing is not just a skill to practice, but a means of communicating with
readers to make a difference in the world," said Brooks. "Dr. Bates extends that
approach with students majoring in writing at Millikin, so that they can learn
the power of their writing in communities and professional organizations. This
award shows how Dr. Bates is a leader in this empowering approach to research on
writing and the pedagogical implications of teaching our students how writing
can make a difference in our world."
One of the aspects Dr. Bates learned from her research is that there is not one
set of strategies that will work when there is an issue, but by looking at
certain case studies, threads and themes emerge that can help community
activists communicate to others in many different ways. "The studies show how to
reach audiences in ways that are culturally sensitive and speak to what they
already know, do and believe – these apply to communicating in any community,"
she said.
Dr. Bates holds a Master of Arts in Liberal & Integrative Studies, with emphases
in environmental studies and journalism, from the University of
Illinois-Springfield. She resides in Lincoln with her husband Blinn Bates and
their two children. Her personal passion and concerns for the environment
played an integral part while she was developing her dissertation.
"This came together because of my interest in the environment and my expertise
in thinking about how people write, communicate and tell stories," said Bates.
"The amount of stories, like the examples in my dissertation, are increasing and
it's become particularly urgent."
The Conference on College Composition and Communication is a constituent
organization within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).
For more information about the CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical
Communication, including past winners, see cccc.ncte.org/cccc/awards/
techcommdissertation.
[Millikin University Media Relations]
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