For my crisis community/faculty member interview, I decided to interview Dr. Candice Lanius. According to Dr. Lanius, she “was always fascinated by the difference in how people communicate, and when the internet arrived and [she] witnesed unique communities forming, [she] was set on studying internet cultures.” Due to her interest in this field, Dr. Lanius received her bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Statistics from The George Washington University. She then proceeded to receive her MS/PhD in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. During her time at graduate school, Dr. Lanius held several positions as a researcher for Research Data Alliance and as a product analyst for Time, Inc. After finishing her PhD, Dr. Lanius came to work for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she currently still works as the Assistant Professor of Communication Arts.
Dr. Lanius spends the majority of her day teaching and mentoring her students. She usually teaches three different courses each semester, which keeps her busy. At UAH, the classes that Dr. Lanius teaches vary from undergraduate to graduate and are mainly focused on Public Relations and Research. Some of the courses that Dr. Lanius teaches include the following: CM 113 Public Speaking, CM 220 Intro to Public Relations, CM 420/520 Public Relations Writing, CM 370 Research Methods, CM 313 Business and Professional Communication, CM 444/544 Advertising, CM 440/540 Public Relations Campaigns, CM 670 Advanced Research Methods, CM 452/552 User Centered Design, and CM 340 Special Topics: Digital Rhetoric. Dr. Lanius also does service for UAH. The rest of her time is spent working on research projects. Dr. Lanius enjoys doing digital rhetoric work when she has the time for solo research projects. However, the majority of her current research projects are collaborative efforts. For example, currently, Dr. Lanius is working with two other faculty members on understanding how users respond to bot and misinformation flags that are added to tweets which support their own beliefs. According to Dr. Lanius, “It is fascinating and also a little scary to see how susceptible we are to manipulation and misinformation if the message affirms our existing beliefs and biases.”
When the pandemic first started in the spring semester of 2020, Dr. Lanius was actually a teacher of mine for CM 420/520 Public Relations Writing. Dr. Lanius’ response to the pandemic connects with the idea of precisis. According to our textbook, “The pre crisis stage involves three substages: (1) signal detection, (2) prevention, and (3) crisis preparation.” (Coombs, 2019). The university and the professors were aware of the threat of a pandemic occurring. They mentioned that while the pandemic had not hit us yet, if it were to occur we would shut down and have classes virtually for a week or more. The university and the professors were aware of the upcoming crisis and were beginning to prepare for it. When the pandemic hit and we all had to first learn how to communicate through Zoom for our classes, it was a little difficult. Dr. Lanius recalls there being some challenges due to some students not having great internet access or not feeling comfortable reaching out to meet through Zoom with her. However, in her opinion, Zoom has been a really great tool to teach and communicate with her students during this strange time. Dr. Lanius did mention that she misses getting to interact with her students regularly in class. According to Dr. Lanius, the students benefit more from being in a classroom together because they get to hear other students ask questions, which is missing now that there are private Zoom sessions and emails. Now, instead of answering the same question once, Dr. Lanius has to answer the same question multiple times. Other times, students don't think to ask questions so they misunderstand the assignment and have to revise it, whereas if they were in a classroom they might have heard another student ask the question. Dr. Lanius also mentions that we are living in a wild moment during this pandemic, and that she doesn’t think anyone could have been prepared for this. According to Dr. Lanius, staying focused on her students helps ground in her in this hectic time. She is very passionate about communication arts, and she wants all of her students to benefit from and love the knowledge they get from her courses.
Dr. Lanius described a situation where she needed to use crisis communication. In this situation, an instructor for CM 313 Business and Professional Communication had to be removed from the class due to unfair treatment of students. Dr. Lanius had to take over the class and work to make sure the students felt their concerns were heard. She also had to work to rebuild the reputation of the department and the University. This relates to how our textbook discusses the importance of reputation. According to the textbook, “A reputation is evaluative, with organizations being seen as having favorable or unfavorable reputations. There is a strong consensus in the practitioner and academic writings that a reputation is an extremely valuable intangible organization resource.” (Coombs, 2019). The department and the university’s reputation was damaged in this situation, and needed to be repaired. A strong reputation could attract more students to the department and university, while an unfavorable reputation could drive students away. In response to the crisis, Dr. Lanius created a brand new assignment that fit with the class purpose, but also accomplished her goals. The prompt for the assignment was essentially that your company (the class) has been purchased, and you must sit down with the new manager (Dr. Lanius) to negotiate your position and compensation (essentially negotiate your grade in the class) since we couldn’t trust the old manager’s (the previous teacher’s) assessment (the old grades). During this situation, Boyd’s OODA Loop can be seen being applied. Boyd’s OODA Loop stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. “Observe is when someone encounters stimuli/identifies a problem. Orient is when she focuses on and analyzes the stimuli. Decide is when she selects a course of action in response to the stimuli. Act is when she initiates her course of action.” (Coombs, 2019). It was observed that the teacher was unfairly treating her students. It was oriented that she was the problem. IT was decided that she be removed and Dr. Lanius would replace her. It was acted upon when Dr. Lanius replaced her and began to use the OODA Loop herself to fix the situation with the class.
According to Dr. Lanius, public relations is important now more than ever. Now, people expect to hear regularly and often from organizations. People also expect full transparency of the organization’s actions and beliefs. Public relations professionals are needed to bridge and connect companies and non-profit organizations to their audiences. According to Dr. Lanius, public relations is a great field to go into because every organization needs that professional experience. She recommended beginning as an entry level professional, so as to receive lots of experience with social media and emerging technologies. She says this experience would help an individual to differentiate themselves from others. During our new normal with the pandemic, Dr. Lanius also mentioned that she thinks public relations can be done in virtual formats. Due to our new normal, public relations mau shift away from in-person, large gatherings and events towards virtual events. She also mentions that this shift may remain in the future, even after we are safe to resume in-person gatherings.
Sources Coombs, T. (2019). Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
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