Alumni Newsletter – March 2025

Forever True Day 2025: Make a Gift to Make a Difference on April 2-3! 

Let’s make a difference together for Communication Studies on Forever True Day. Help us achieve our goal on Iowa State’s annual day of giving. The Communication Studies faculty and staff are issuing a special challenge this year. When 25 donors make a gift to Communication Studies on Forever True Day, a special donation of $2500 from the Communication Studies faculty and staff will be unlocked for the Communication Studies Excellence Fund! Forever True Day is ISU’s annual day of giving that brings Cyclones together for an impactful 24 hours. Communication Studies would greatly appreciate your donation. Communication skills are critical in all professions. Gifts of all sizes are welcome! Remember, all it takes is 25 givers to Communication Studies on Forever True Day to unlock the faculty and staff challenge donation of $2500!  

Come Hear Our Students Share Their Applied Communication Research Studies! 

Prior to graduation, our majors are required to conduct an applied communication research study in COMST 4040: Research Seminar.  Students study concepts they have learned through their 3000-level Communication Studies courses in an organization of their choosing.  Students collect and analyze survey, interview, observation, and/or textual data and present their results in a final paper and presentation.  

This year, for the very first time, we are inviting our alumni to attend the presentations!  Come learn about the results our students uncovered and the recommendations for improving their organizations’ communication.  In addition, we invite you to dialogue with our students by asking questions about their research. 

This semester’s presentations will take place May 8, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., in the Cardinal Room of the Memorial Union. We’d love for you to join us. 

Wanted: Internships! 

Help us help you — and your organization, too! As a graduate of our program, you know that Communication Studies has the very best students: hard-working, intelligent, and equipped with essential skills in communication! Today’s students are seeking internships to help them gain the on-the-job skills that will benefit them in their future employment. Do you need an intern in your organization? Wouldn’t you love to have an intern who has skills in communication? If your organization has an internship that you would like us to advertise to our students, please reach out and let us know. We’d love to share the information with our students! You can contact our director, Dr. Stacy Tye-Williams: styewill@iastate.edu 

Our students want to meet you!

We are hosting our first Alumni-Student Speed Networking Event on September 16 at 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. During the event, small groups of students will speak with one alumni for 10 minutes, then those students will rotate to the next alumni until they’ve had a chance to talk to all participating alumni. The goal is for students to learn from your professional experience, make connections with you for career ideas, networking, and internships. Please email Dr. Kelly Odenweller at kellyo@iastate.edu if you’re interested in participating.

Alumni Gathering at Homecoming 2025 

Alumni and families are invited to join us for our second Communication Studies Alumni Gathering during Homecoming 2025. The gathering will be held in conjunction with the Homecoming football game against BYU on Saturday, October 25.  Time of the event will be announced later, once game time has been set. However, we project that unless the game is scheduled for an early kickoff, the gathering will begin three hours prior to kickoff and run up until game time. Last year’s event was so fun, but it was only two hours long. Alumni asked us to extend the event for another hour, so we will! Please mark the date on your calendar and plan to join us for conversation, connecting and catching up!  

Small Groups Have a Large Impact! 

Students in Dr. Tye-Williams’ COMST 3170 Small Group Communication class have been hard at work developing fundraising events for their final class projects. Over the years, students have used their communication skills to work together to support a variety of organizations, such as: the Boys and Girls Club, Ames Animal Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, Make a Wish Foundation, American Heart Association, ACCESS, Youth & Shelter Service, and many others. By working in groups, students learn the benefits of communication and collaboration, combining talents and efforts to have a tremendous impact through the organizations they support. In Communication Studies, philanthropy is valued and advanced! 

Update from Dr. Denise Vrchota 

Recently, one of our longest-serving faculty members retired. Dr. Vrchota shares her update on what she is doing during her “retirement.”  

Being retired doesn’t mean that there is nothing to do – at least not in my case. Before retiring three years ago, I offered occasional interpersonal communication seminars to graduate students. After retiring, I was approached by the Graduate College about continuing to offer the seminars, to which I responded with a resounding “YES!” 

Currently I’ve developed fourteen communication seminars: approximately half on public speaking topics such as responding to audience questions and delivering a speech with confidence; the remaining seminars on interpersonal communication topics (conflict management, conducting a difficult discussion, etc.). The seminars are not all offered each semester or even each year, depending on what my “boss” in the Graduate College believes is of interest to or needed by graduate students.  Some seminars are offered in-person and others, online.  

Most grad students attend seminars to meet a personal need: they want advice about discussing a difficult topic with their professor or they are presenting their research at a conference and are concerned about responding to difficult questions while retaining their credibility.  As you might guess, often their questions are very challenging, and I do my best to provide them with theory-based responses that enable them to apply communication skills to their specific situations. 

For someone who supposedly has nothing to do, I’m finding my retired life to be very busy, but also lots of fun.  I hope all of you are happy and healthy and have benefitted from your knowledge of Communication Studies in both your personal and professional lives.  It was a pleasure to work with you in the Communication Studies program. 

Best wishes to you all, 

Denise Vrchota, vrchota@iastate.edu, Teaching Professor Emerita, Communication Studies Program 

Alumni Updates 

Kurtis Taylor – It’s with great honor and passion that I share these notes with you all – past, present, and future Communication Studies Cyclones. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not reminded of the importance of communication skills and their far-reaching impact on the quality of our lives and relationships. If nothing else, I hope to encourage you on your journey, whether you’re prospective students, current students, or alumni.  

I’m reminded of my time in class with Kay Mueller and her teaching us the elevator model of communication – the idea that when we share stories about our experiences with others, like an elevator going to the next level, our relationships can also go to the next level. It’s a good metaphor that highlights how both listening to and sharing stories with those around us can help in building meaningful relationships.  

Another fond memory was being in Dr. Jenks’ class during the 2007 Cy-Hawk rivalry week. I remember the support and belief that was shared amongst my classmates and me that week and then being a part of keeping the Cy-Hawk trophy in Ames. That shared belief amongst classmates, professors, teammates, and coaches really puts meaning behind the words “Cyclone Family.” 

In some ways, my professional journey has come full circle, as I am now a Sports Medicine territory manager for Smith & Nephew. Being part of a surgical team helping patients recover from sports injuries every day reminds me of the staff at Iowa State who helped me come back from my ACL injury in 2006. Mark Coberly, Shannon Peel, Dr. Peter Buck, Dr. Schulman, and the team of physical therapists and athletic trainers who all played a big role in helping me come back strong from injury. Getting an opportunity to work with surgical teams repairing patients’ sports medicine injuries requires great communication skills, many of which are taught and developed right here at Iowa State University.  

In closing, no matter where you are in your journey, believe, have faith, and surround yourself with a team who you care about and who cares about you! Go Cyclones!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 

Note: Kurtis (#47) was a defensive end on the ISU football team from 2004-2008 who served as team captain in 2008. Originally from Fort Dodge, Iowa, Kurtis was selected as Iowa State’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2007. 

Krista Klocke – After I graduated with a double major in Communication Studies and Speech Communication, I continued at Iowa State to complete my MA and PhD in Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Communication. I have been full-time with the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at ISU since July of 2023 as the Instructor Development Coordinator. In my role, I coordinate programming and professional development opportunities, working with faculty and instructors across campus. I love working with program participants, talking with instructors about teaching, and brainstorming learning strategies they can try with their students. One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to conduct teaching observations, visiting classes when instructors would like some feedback and an outside perspective. In my consultations with instructors, I often reference theories of communication that are relevant to teaching and classroom management. My Communication Studies major prepared me well for the work I am doing now! 

Pete Ragias – After graduating Iowa State in 2005, I moved to California after a very brief stint in the Chicagoland area, and have spent the majority of the last two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Cruz, with a two year stint in Santa Monica. I currently reside in San Francisco. 

Recently, I founded a company called PopJoy (www.popjoy.app), a platform serving webcomic creators/readers. We have found a great product/market fit, I have an amazing team, and we are on track to launch publicly in summer 2025. Founding a company in the webcomics space was never on my radar, but it’s been very fulfilling and I’m excited to share it with the world soon! 

Prior to founding PopJoy, I spent my career in higher education fundraising, working for leading institutions including Stanford University, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Harvard Business School, and Arizona State University. 

Each organization has afforded me the opportunity to connect with – and learn from – talented professionals, educators, and leaders across a number of different disciplines & sectors of our economy. I feel very fortunate for the relationships and experiences I have gained along the way, but having earned my Masters degree from Harvard University while working for Harvard Business School, that institution, like Iowa State, holds an extra special place in my heart. 

As I reflect on the last two decades, I am convinced that Iowa State was the foundation for so much of where my journey has taken me, and the lessons we were taught in Communication Studies have become important values in my life: Value the power of listening, surround yourself with people of good character, and be open to new experiences. 

These values have afforded me more opportunities to learn, travel, and grow than I can begin to detail here and I am truly grateful for my time at Iowa State. I want to especially thank three faculty members whose guidance I still reflect on: Dr. Todd Jenks, Dr. Mark Redmond, and Dr. Denise Vrchota. 

Go Cyclones!  

Share Your Update!  

We invite you to share an update with your fellow alumni from Communication Studies. The alumni who attended our Homecoming Alumni Gathering told us that they LOVE reading the updates from other alumni. Your update could be about your career, your personal life, a trip you took, a memory of your time in Communication Studies. Just send your update to our alumni coordinator, Dr. Todd Jenks, drjenks@iastate.edu, and we’ll get it included in a future edition of this newsletter.