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Awards and Honors

Departmental Distinction

This award recognizes outstanding academic achievement, and is given to those undergraduate students who have earned a cumulative GPA of at least 3.25 and at least 3.5 in major coursework, and who have also completed 12 hours of 400-level courses in Speech Communication.

High Distinction

To graduate with high distinction in speech communication, students must (a) have earned a cumulative GPA of at least 3.25 and at least 3.5 in major coursework, (b) have also completed 12 hours of 400-level courses in Speech Communication; and (c) have completed an honors thesis supervised by a faculty member in the department. Students who are interested in this option need to make arrangements with a faculty member during their junior year (preferably), or the first week of the fall term of their senior year at the latest.

A senior thesis is a special kind of independent study that culminates in the writing of a thesis. Students should expect to meet many times with their faculty supervisor in the terms in
which they are writing the thesis, and to submit to him or her regular drafts of the project for comments and approval. Students who are pursuing an honor thesis can enroll in Speech Communication 493 during the semesters in which they are working on their project.

The final version of the thesis must be approved by the faculty supervisor and signed by the Head of the Speech Communication Department. The thesis is then submitted to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS). The thesis format should comply with guidelines specified by LAS.

Convocation Speaker

As part of the graduation convocation designated for Speech Communication graduates, a student speaker is selected to represent the graduates. All graduating Speech Communication majors with an overall GPA of at least 3.0 and a GPA in the major of 3.25 are eligible to audition. All graduating seniors will receive notification of the audition time and place. Auditions will occur shortly after classes commence following Spring break.

The Illinois Tradition Awards and The Bonita M. Whitlock Scholarship

The Illinois Tradition Awards

In the Spring of 1984, the faculty of the Department of Speech Communication voted to establish a program of annual awards to students. Conferred for the first time in 1985, these awards recognize distinguished achievement by undergraduate students, and emphasize the department’s commitment to encourage its students to seek excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service.

In naming these awards, the faculty chose to honor persons who played especially important roles in building and perpetuating the tradition of leadership and excellence in teaching and research inherited by the present generation of students and faculty. Each award is named for a former member of the department’s faculty or staff, and the awards are known collectively as the Illinois Tradition Awards. The annual presentation of these awards recalls with gratitude and affection the contributions of our predecessors and expresses our commitment to building a future worthy of the foundation they laid.

The Illinois Tradition Awards are made possible by contributions from alumni and friends of the department.

The Richard Murphy Award

2008, No nominations received for this award.

The Murphy Award honors the author of the most outstanding scholarly paper written during the preceding twelve months by an undergraduate major for a course in the department or for submission to a publication or conference in our discipline. To be eligible for consideration, papers must be nominated by a member of the department’s teaching staff and have been singly authored by an undergraduate major.

Richard Murphy, born in Marienville, Pennsylvania in 1930, received A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and also studied at Cornell University, the State University of Iowa, and the University of Edinburgh. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh (with Wayland Maxfield Parrish), Cornell University, and the University of Colorado before coming to Illinois in 1945. After 26 years on the Illinois faculty, he retired in 1971.

Mr. Murphy was editor of The Quarterly Journal of Speech from 1960 to 1962 and a member of the Administrative Committee of the Speech Association of America. His scholarship in the history of the British and American public address particularly emphasized the role of rhetoric in politics. His intense commitment to safeguarding freedom of speech and civil liberties led to a special interest in the methods of discourse that facilitate deliberation, decision-making, and problem-solving in democratic society. This commitment was also expressed in the many workshops on parliamentary procedure which Mr. Murphy conducted for organizations and groups of all kinds and in his service as parliamentarian of the 1970 Constitutional Convention of the State of Illinois.

The Wayland Maxfield Parrish Award

2008 Recipient: Justin Bozarth

The Parrish Award honors the graduating senior who, at the end of the fall semester of the year in which the award is given, has the highest overall grade-point average among senior majors in the department’s Sciences and Letters curriculum.

Wayland Maxfield Parrish, born in Mohawk Village, Ohio in 1887, received an A.B. from Ohio Wesleyan University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. After serving as Chair of the Division of Public Speaking at the University of Pittsburgh (where he directed Marie Hochmuth’s [Nichols] master’s thesis), he came to Illinois in 1936 to chair the Division of Speech within the Department of English. Under his direction, the division grew to the point where, in 1946, it was made an autonomous Department of Speech. He continued to serve on the faculty of the new department until his retirement in 1955. He died in 1970.

Mr. Parrish was an early leader in the development of teaching and research in speech communication and a President of the Eastern Speech Association. His scholarship concentrated on the history of rhetoric and the ideas of Richard Whately, although, like most persons in the field’s early days, Mr. Parrish was essentially a generalist. In addition to his wide-ranging scholarly publications, he wrote three early texts that were influential in shaping instruction in three different areas: public speaking, communication education, and the oral interpretation of literature.

When Mr. Parrish was hired at Illinois, his former teacher at Cornell, Lane Cooper, predicted the “the study of rhetoric and the students will fare well in his hands.” Cooper’s prediction was fully redeemed by the growth and development of the Division of Speech under Wayland Maxfield Parrish, its last Chairman. With the hiring of Nichols, Murphy, Dieter and others, he assembled the core of the faculty that would rise to preeminence in its field under the leadership of Karl Wallace.

The King Broadrick-Allen Award

2008 Recipient: Hanna Badmus

The Broadrick-Allen Award honors the graduating senior who, at the end of the fall semester in which the award is given, has the highest overall grade-point average among the department’s senior majors who are designated as pre-law students.

King Broadrick-Allen, born in Granite City, Oklahoma in 1918, earned a B.A. from Arizona State University, a J.D. from the University of Virginia, an A.M. from the University of Illinois, and an LL.M. from Columbia University. Broadrick-Allen was Director of Debate at the University of Virginia before joining the Illinois faculty in 1948. He served the University in a variety of capacities over the next thirty-three years. In addition to his appointment in Speech Communication, Broadrick-Allen held a succession of administrative positions concerned with undergraduate education and, especially, the University’s honors program. He was pre-law adviser and Assistant Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences for nearly a decade. In that capacity, he prepared the first version of the LAS Student Handbook and proposed creation of the General Curriculum for freshmen and sophomores in Liberal Arts and Sciences. Later, as Director of University Honors Programs, he was a strong advocate for expanding opportunities for honors students. His personal interest in honors students was evident to his colleagues in speech communication whom he frequently pressed into service to help prepare outstanding students for interviews in national competitions for prestigious graduate and professional school fellowships. He also served as parliamentarian for a variety of campus units. He died in 1981.

Mr. Broadrick-Allen’s scholarship concerned the communication-related aspects of legal advocacy. He was one of the first scholars to work in the now well-established study of communication and the law.

The Otto A. L. Dieter Award

2008 Recipient: Casey Meyer

The Dieter Award is given in recognition of exceptional service to the department by an undergraduate concentrator. To be eligible for consideration, students must be nominated by a member of the department’s teaching staff.

Otto A. L. Dieter, born in Enderlin, South Dakota in 1900, attended Wartburg College (Iowa), received a Diploma in Classical Languages from Wartburg Theological Seminary (Iowa), an A.B. from Bradley Institute, and M.A. and Ph.D. from the State University of Iowa. Ordained as a clergyman in the American Lutheran Church, he served as a pastor and instructor at several colleges before joining the Illinois faculty in 1939. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps, rising to the rank of Major during assignments in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He returned to the University following the war and remained on the faculty until his death in 1968. In addition to his faculty duties, he remained active in the U.S. Army Reserve, retiring as Lieutenant Colonel in 1960, and preached an average of forty or more sermons each year in Illinois churches.

Mr. Dieter was a specialist in medieval rhetoric. His article on “Stasis” won international recognition for its exposition of the ancient concept. The Speech Association of America honored Mr. Dieter’s “Arbor Picta: The Medieval Tree of Preaching” with a 1965 Golden Anniversary Prize Fund Award. The aims of his scholarship were explained in his 1951 “Classics and Speech”: “The Classics represent the usable past of rhetoric; our future will be the richer if we possess our heritage intelligently, for then we shall be more able to discern the values of modern tendencies in the field of speech.”

The Bonita M. Whitlock Scholarship

2008 Recipients: Wesley Didriksen & Jennifer van Tuyle

The Bonita M. Whitlock Scholarship was established in 1994 by a gift from Mrs. Whitlock to the University of Illinois Foundation. Mrs. Whitlock, a 1931 graduate of the University, requested that her gift be used to provide an annual scholarship for a student in the Department of Speech Communication.

The Whitlock Scholarship was awarded for the first time in 1995. It recognizes an undergraduate student who has compiled an outstanding academic and service record in the department. Proceeds from the scholarship will be used to defray the recipient’s academic expenses during the 2007-2008 academic year.

Recipients of the Illinois Tradition Awards

Wayland Maxfield Parrish Award
King Broadrick-Allen Award
Kenneth Burns Award
Richard Murphy Award
Otto A. L. Dieter Award
Bonita M. Whitlock Scholarship