Spring 2020 Issue: How the Business Communication Community Is Weathering Through the COVID-19 Crisis

The response to our call for submissions to this special issue has been robust. The contributors have written on so many aspects of their experiences with COVID-19 that only a perusal of all the articles can capture their scope and dimensions. We present interviews with two organizational leaders of interest that cast light on how the association for business communication is fairing this pandemic and offer information about a young academic organization that should be of particular help to all of us who have been assigned to teach online, or “remotely”. The first of these interviews is with our own Executive director, Jim Dubinsky and the second one is with GSOLE president, Scott Warnock.

Several authors have shared their very personal feelings about living through these difficult times. Of particular note is the experiential piece by an anonymous graduate student depicting how she juggles her diverse roles in the confined home space. You may also find the personal responses by Alison Alford, Mollie Hartup, and Danica Schieber echoing some of your own experiences.

Teaching columns from Katherine Breward, Christina Iluzada and Allison Alford, and Eric Holmes offer some very timely advice for our summer and fall courses. Two research reports require underlining here: the first one by Ryan Fuller presents the results of his study of the Sacramento area nonprofits in these Corona times and the second one led by Peter Cardon reports on how their longitudinal, international teaching collaboration is adjusting itself to this pandemic. Last but not least we share the responses from three European scholars from Belgium, Germany, and Hungary about how they are coping with this pandemic. We would like to hear from our readers about this COVID-19 issue of the Western ABC Bulletin.

Mikel Chertudi and I take this opportunity to thank all the authors, interviewees, anonymous reviewers, and other colleagues who made this special issue possible. Mikel designed and laid out this large issue in a record time of two days so that we could still call it our spring issue. I also want to thank Jolanta Aritz, Marilyn Buerkens, Geoff Clegg, Zsuzsanna Palmer, and my sons for contributing to this special issue in different capacities.

Sushil Oswal
Editor, the Western ABC Bulletin
oswal@u.washington.edu