[ecrea] CFP: Millennial Culture and Communication Pedagogies: Narratives from the Classroom and Higher Education

CFP: Millennial Culture and Communication Pedagogies: Narratives from 
the Classroom and Higher Education (Edited Book)

Editors: Ahmet Atay (College of Wooster) and Mary Z. Ashlock (University 
of Louisville)

Members of the millennial generation, or Generation Y, were born between 
the early 1980s and the early 2000s. Therefore, most of them are 
offspring of the baby boomers. They are also known as the most 
technologically savvy generation. Even though Generation X’ers were 
known to heavily consume electronic media because they were born when 
the Internet was in its infancy, the millennials were born into a 
media-saturated and consumer-driven culture. Moreover, unlike the 
members of the previous generations, they were surrounded by digital 
media technologies since they were infants. In a way, they live in a 
digital media ecology and in fact are known as “digital natives” (see 
John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Anders Parment, Faruk Tanyel et al.). 
Acland argues that Generation Y is described as “massive in numbers, 
entrepreneurial in spirit, and heavily invested in media-defined 
branding” (43).

Since they live in digitalized platforms, millennials are often 
disconnected from the members of the previous generations. For the most 
part, rather than being community oriented, they are self-centered and 
self-absorbed. Perhaps, this why they are known as the “Generation Me” 
(See Petridis 126; Fromm and Garton 120).

The members of the millennial generation are now moving into teaching 
and academic positions in higher education. Hence, while they are facing 
challenges themselves, senior faculty members and administrators are 
also grappling with complex issues that perhaps they have not faced 
before. For example, one criticism suggests new faculty are needier. 
Similarly, the lack of mentoring junior faculty, especially when it 
comes to research is increasingly becoming an issue.  Perhaps all these 
are also influenced by the changing cultural landscapes of academia as 
well as the cultural practices of the Millennial generation.

Our goal for this publication is to engage in a scholarly dialogue about 
millennials and how their academic and non-academic interests and 
everyday performances within and outside of higher education influence 
our communication with them. Because of their age range, some of the 
members of this generation are working in higher education as 
professors, lecturers or graduate students.

Mentoring is an integral component of higher education. As faculty, we 
mentor students who represent diverse backgrounds, such as 
first-generation, LGBTQ, and international students. Perhaps, as 
scholars and educators, we have not spent a lot of time thinking about 
/how /to be a mentor, or we did not receive mentorship training during 
graduate study. Due to a lack of formal mentorship training, many of us 
instinctively model those who helped us as students and junior faculty 
members (both members of the millennial generation). Often, we simply 
mentor by trial and error, which, in some instances can result in 
spending hours trying to help students resolve their problems. 
Similarly, junior faculty also need guidance in their teaching and 
research. However, in some instances, mentoring becomes a secondary 
concern when, as scholars, we are busy mentoring students, teaching 
classes, and conducting research. Thus, we may neglect our 
responsibilities to mentor junior faculty who often struggle with 
developing a research agenda, becoming an effective educator, or 
balancing their work and personal lives. Therefore, mentoring is one of 
the most crucial aspects of our academic lives.

This call invites abstracts for an edited book that takes qualitative, 
interpretive, and critical and cultural perspectives in examining the 
millennial culture in higher education from communication perspectives. 
This book has several interrelated goals:

1-Examine different aspects of the millennial generation and their 
culture in higher education from a communication perspective.

2-Focus on communication pedagogies that aims to understand the 
millennial culture whose members are culturally diverse and complicated.

3-Discuss how to mentor the members of the Millennial generation, who 
are diverse, who might have different learning needs and abilities, and 
might be socially, culturally and politically differently located and 
functioning. Offer different ways of mentorship to improve the 
communication and generational gap between the members of different 
generations.

4-Examine the role and issues of new media and technology in the 
classroom. This is a crucial area of inquiry considering we are 
educating a generation that was born into and grew up with technologies.

5-Offer new perspectives on changing facets of the classroom experience, 
particularly due the impact of the millennial culture.

Topics may include but not limited to:

1-Millennial generation and the role and issues of new media and 
technology in the classroom

2-Different ways of understanding the millennial culture whose members 
are culturally diverse and complicated

3-Teaching diversity to, for and with millennials

4-Mentoring millennial students

5-Mentoring millennial faculty members

6-Discussions on curricular changes to absorb the millennial cultural 
practices

7-Culturally diverse millennial experiences

8-Developing new communication pedagogies

Abstracts are due by February 1, 2017, with a word length of no more 
than 500 words, along with pertinent references, contact information, 
and a short biographic blurb of 300 words. Full-length manuscripts are 
due on July 1, 2017, with a word length of no more than 5,000-7,000 
words and in APA style, including references, endnotes, and so forth. 
The project is currently under contract with Lexington Books. Please 
mail your abstracts as Word documents to Ahmet Atay ((aatay /at/ wooster.edu)) 
for an initial review.



Ahmet Atay, Ph.D
Associate Professor
Department of Communication
College of Wooster
+
Visiting Scholar, CEMP
University of Bournemouth


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