News Article

Gonzaga University graduate student Sina Schmidt, of Hehlen, Germany, was recently honored with the top graduate paper award at the 32nd annual Northwest Communication Association conference for her research on “Paradoxes at Work: How Participatory Processes and Practices at a Non-Profit Organization can Constitute a New Public Sphere.” The NWCA’s “Conviction”-themed conference took place April 10-12 at the Coeur d’Alene Resort in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Schmidt’s winning paper discusses paradoxical participatory practices in alternative organizations. She expected to find that organizations enacting democratic principles would be able to create a new public sphere, and she found this to be true, especially when the potential for paradoxes to initiate collective discourse was realized.

Schmidt, who completed her master’s in Gonzaga’s Communication and Leadership Studies program in February, is the communication specialist and trainer in Gonzaga’s office of sexual assault and harm prevention. Before attending Gonzaga, she studied at the University of Lueneburg in Germany as well as at North Idaho College and Lewis-Clark State College, both in Idaho. Initially, an internship with KOZI Radio Lake Chelan in Chelan, Wash., brought Schmidt to the United States, but she stayed long after, “having fallen in love with the Inland Northwest.”

For more information, contact Schmidt at (509) 323-5567 or via e-mail. To learn more about the NWCA, visit its Web site.