Salem College was the host institution for the annual Carolinas Communication Association Conference, Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at the Hawthorne Inn and Conference Center in Winston-Salem.

Chief operating officer of The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, Richard Emmett, was the keynote speaker during the conference’s opening session, Sept. 30. Salem College faculty and students presented a panel discussion titled, “Inartful Communication: Challenging the Language of Bullying.” Students Jacqueline Causey and Allegra Baker joined two Salem professors, Drs. Elizabeth Dickinson, and Carol Dykers, the panel moderator, for a discussion of bullying as communicative acts. A reception for the conference was held after the panel in the Saal inside the Single Sisters House on the Salem College campus.

"We're trying a slightly different format here in Winston-Salem because, for the first time, we've invited people to present visual projects that are backed by research,” says Dykers, chair of the Salem College department of communication. “In the City of the Arts, we're discussing communication as art and the art of communication. We have some invited panels that address that theme from many directions. Both art and communication are tricky to define, and it's even trickier to find agreement on what is artful and what is inartful."

At the close of the conference on Oct. 1, Dykers, who previously served as the association’s first vice president, was inducted as president of the Carolinas Communication Association.

The Carolinas Communication Association is a regional organization for communication scholars—faculty, graduate students and undergraduates at colleges in North Carolina and South Carolina.