Communication Scholar Receives Faculty’s Top Honor

The faculty of UC Santa Barbara has bestowed its highest honor on Linda Putnam, professor of communication. Widely recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars in organizational communication, Putnam is the recipient of the 2015 Faculty Research Lecturer Award.

In announcing the award, the UCSB Academic Senate noted Putnam’s national and international renown for her research, which also focuses on conflict negotiation and bargaining. As one of her supporters stated, “Her research productivity is legendary; she has occupied every high office there is, including the presidency of the International Communication Association. She is literally the ‘dean’ of the discipline, and recognized as such on every corner of the globe.”

Presented annually, the Faculty Research Lectureship was established in 1955, and Putnam is the 60th recipient of the award. Her Faculty Research Lecture will take place on campus, and will be free and open to the public. The date and location of the lecture have not yet been determined.

“On behalf of our UC Santa Barbara community, I am honored and delighted to congratulate Professor Linda Putnam on this well-deserved honor,” said UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “Her renowned research in negotiation and conflict management are of tremendous importance to the world we live in. I look forward to hearing Professor Putnam’s Faculty Research Lecture, which I know will be thought-provoking with rich impact to all of us.”

Noted Melvin Oliver, executive dean of the College of Letters and Science at UCSB and the SAGE Sara Miller McCune Dean of Social Sciences, “Professor Putnam is a fitting recipient of this award. A prolific scholar, her contributions to the study of organizational communication have been truly generative, moving the field forward both theoretically and empirically. Her scholarship represents the ‘gold standard’ and we are gratified that this, the highest recognition that the UCSB faculty can give, is being bestowed upon her.”

“I am thrilled to be selected as the 2015 Faculty Research Lecturer,” said Putnam. “This award is clearly the penultimate recognition that a scholar at UCSB can receive and it is indeed an honor to receive it and be included in the ranks of such distinguished past recipients.”

Putnam joined the UCSB faculty in 2007 after serving as a Regent’s Professor and as the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. While at Texas A&M she also served as director of the conflict and dispute resolution program at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Her current research examines conflict framing in multiparty environmental disputes, especially in the ways that different stakeholders make sense of complex, seemingly intractable conflicts. Her work is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Putnam is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Communication Association (ICA) and from the International Association for Conflict Management, and the 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the Academy of Management Association. In 2005 she received the International Communication Association’s Steven H. Chaffee Career Productivity Award — the highest award for lifetime scholarly achievement. She has twice received the Best Article Award from the International Communication Association, first in 2005 and again in 2009.

Putnam is past president of the International Communication Association, the International Association for Conflict Management and the Council of Communication Associations. She was elected an at-large member of the Academy of Management Board of Governors and has served as chair of the Organizational Communication divisions for the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association.

The author of 12 books, 51 chapters and hundreds of essays, reviews and proceedings, she also has served on editorial boards for ten journals, and has co-edited and guest edited several handbooks, major works volumes and journal special issues.