Rebecca M. Townsend

(she/her/hers)

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Rebecca M. Townsend is a scholar of rhetoric and culture of communication. Her research focuses on the ways culture and rhetoric help shape people’s understandings of contemporary issues, those of the past, and how the ways people talk create boundaries for what is possible in democracy. She has published communication research in public engagement, public memory, and political communication locally, regionally, and in Central and Eastern Europe.

She was a tenured associate professor of communication at University of Hartford, professor in residence in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut, professor and chair of the Communication Department at Manchester Community College and Director of the Institute of Community Engagement and Outreach. She taught graduate courses in Poland for the MBA/MPA and MPC programs at Społeczna Akademia Nauk in partnership with Clark University for four years during summers. She has been an invited guest speaker at the University of Warsaw.

Her work on public engagement was honored by President Obama's White House, with a "Champion of Change for Transportation Innovation" award, and she served on the transition team focused on transportation equity for Governor Maura Healey an Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll.

Experience

  • 2023–present
    Associate Director of Assessment, Holyoke Community College
  • 2026–present
    Director of Academic Affairs, University of Connecticut Hartford
  • 2017–2023
    Associate Professor of Communication, University of Hartford
  • 2016–2021
    Adjunct professor, Społeczna Akademia Nauk
  • 2008–2017
    Professor, Manchester Community College
  • 2016–2017
    Professor in Residence, University of Connecticut

Education

  • 2004 
    University of Massachusetts Amherst, Communication
  • 1997 
    Indiana University Bloomington, Speech Communication
  • 1995 
    University of Massachusetts Amherst, Communication

Publications

  • 2023
    Beyond the Cold War: Presidential Rhetoric in Central and Eastern Europe, https://www.peterlang.com/document/1348320
  • 2022
    An Enduring System of Local Deliberative Democracy: The 21st Century Legal and Normative Structure of Massachusetts Town Meeting, Journal of Deliberative Democracy https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221093588
  • 2022
    New England Town Meeting and the Cultivation of Deliberative Play, American Behavioral Scientist https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221093588
  • 2021
    ‘Eligible to be heard’ in transportation planning, Journal of Applied Communication Research https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2020.1849768
  • 2021
    Agent or Scene? Foreign Correspondents’ Rhetorical Framing of Poland in Their Reflections on Their Own Reporting Practices, Southern Communication Journal https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2021.1891275
  • 2019
    Speaking for Another Polis, Iowa Journal of Communication
  • 2018
    Trump’s Warsaw Address, or How the “West” Was Widened, Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric
  • 2018
    Deval Patrick on the Power of Rhetoric, The Howard Journal of Communications
  • 2018
    Identifying association between pedestrian safety interventions and street-crossing behavior considering demographics and traffic context, Journal of Transportation Safety & Security https://doi.org/10.1080/19439962.2018.1490369
  • 2016
    Social network effects on attitudes about pedestrian street crossing behaviour: preliminary findings, https://www.academia.edu/72506503/Social_network_effects_on_attitudes_about_pedestrian_street_crossing_behaviour_preliminary_findings
  • 2013
    Engaging ‘Others’ in Civic Engagement through Ethnography of Communication, Journal of Applied Communication Research
  • 2009
    Town Meeting as a Communication Event: Democracy’s Act Sequence, Research on Language and Social Interaction
  • 2006
    Widening the Circumference of Scene: Local Politics, Local Metaphysics, KBJournal
  • 2006
    Local Communication Studies, Quarterly Journal of Speech

Grants and Contracts

  • 2010
    Partnership for Inclusive, Cost-Effective Public Participation
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Federal Transit Administration

Professional Memberships

  • National Communication Association
  • Eastern Communication Association
  • Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
  • Communication Association of Eurasian Researchers

Honours

White House Champions of Change

Contact Rebecca for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision