Dr. Laura Stafford, SMC Director, with co-author Prabu David has published  “A Relational Approach to Religion and Spirituality in Marriage The Role of Couples’ Religious Communication in Marital Satisfaction” in recent issue of Journal of Family Issues. Using a relational model of religion and spirituality in marriage, the study examined the role of individual relationship with God, couple’s joint religious communication, and forgiveness as predictors of marital satisfaction. Here is the direct link to this article  http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/36/2/232.abstract

December 8, 2014

Right down the road from 42^nd and Broadway, the BGSU Falcon Forensics and Debate Team were putting on a show-stopper of their own, winning back-to-back tournaments in New York.  The tournaments were hosted by Suffolk and Nassau College on December 6 & 7, 2014 and featured exceptional competition from colleges and Universities ranging from El Camino College in California to Seton Hall of New Jersey to Bridgewater of Connecticut to Texas at El Paso.

The team combined its efforts to amass a 120+ point lead over second place Texas College of El Paso with over 80% of the BGSU’s events earning final rounds. Combined, BGSU team members brought home 68 awards, including 5 of the top 6 individual speaker awards (Spencer Coile, Evan Kelly, Chris Stack, Matthew Thompson and Lexi Martinez).  In individual events, BGSU earned 13 event championships in the categories of Communication Analysis, Informative Speaking, Persuasive Speaking, Poetry Interpretation, After Dinner Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, DUO Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, and Prose Interpretation. Overall, this was the most successful tournament weekend in 4 years as BGSU’s success culminated in a big win of the “Overall Swing Tournament Champion” honor for the weekend.  This tournament caps the fall term, one of the most successful for the Falcons as they have earned top team honors at multiple tournaments and are positioned for a run at the top 10 national team ranking at the National Forensics Association Championship Tournament in April.  Thus far, BGSU students have qualified a record breaking 62 events for this year’s nationals through events which began their development back in June.

Leading the success this weekend were seniors Spencer Coile (Illinois), Chris Stack (Pennsylvania) and Lexi Martinez (Texas). Members, Brooke Deck, Angela Perretta, Lindsay Bolding, Dylan House (Ohio), Evan Kelly (Illinois), Megan McGill (Texas) and Matthew Thompson (Florida) mounted impressive performances, with each member of the team earning multiple final rounds at the competition.   “This was an amazing tournament. I am truly proud of their accomplishments, especially since our team is so young.” “Forensics, like most activities, relies on the experience of a group’s members.  Our team really matured this weekend and it showed in the quality of their performance.” said Paul Wesley Alday, Director of Forensics and Debate.

See attached file with the listing of individual awards. individual_awards2014

For the second year (4^th semester), BGSU students and older adults of Bowling Green have worked together to build relationships and skills as they have bonded over technology at BG’s Senior Center and downtown library. College students enrolled in small group communication courses at BGSU have been conducting workshops for older adults from Bowling Green and surrounding communities to help the older adults better understand tablets (e.g., iPads, Kindles, Nooks, and Galaxys). The workshops were launched and continue at the WCCOA; they have now been expanded to include workshops at the Wood County District Public Library (WCDPL).

We held our second “graduation” celebration November 6 in the Dining Room at the Wood County Senior Center. The older adults brought delicious food, the WCCOA provided coffee, plates, etc., and BGSU’s Office of Service Learning covered additional beverages. We all enjoyed the poignant speech delivered by our graduation speaker, Dr. Dale Klopfer,  an Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Friends, family, and interested members of the public  joined the student teachers and older adult students in celebrating accomplishments in learning more about each other, teaching, leading, and technology.

Check out this great article in The Sentinel-Tribune http://m.sent-trib.com/community/senior/connections-made/article_ac2c26c6-6689-11e4-8b19-23de25146b19.html?mode=jqm and  the project’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/docmcICI?ref=hl

Even better news? We still have a few spots open if you’re interested in enrolling in COMM 2030 Spring 2015!