Friends, 

We are very much looking forward to the virtual 2021 Carolinas Communication Association conference. We on the Executive Committee are writing to share about the specifics of the upcoming conference experience. 

We invite your paper submissions (8-20 pages), panel submissions and Great Ideas For Teaching Students (GIFTS) submissions. A reminder that all paper submissions are automatically eligible for top faculty awards (faculty), top graduate paper awards (graduate students) and top undergraduate paper awards (undergraduate students). We also invite digital posters of research by undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Submitters are kindly asked to indicate whether their status (faculty, graduate student or undergraduate student) on the title page of their submission. We are an inclusive, welcoming conference and we look forward to receiving your work. 

In addition, in view of the COVID 19 pandemic, we would also like to offer submitters the opportunity to submit extended abstracts (250 words to 750 words) of work in progress. Extended abstracts can be submitted in any of the aforementioned categories (paper, panel or GIFTS) and should be clearly labeled as extended abstracts. While extended abstracts will not be eligible for awards, all submissions will be considered for programming as part of CCA 2021. 

We aim to maintain the May 15, 2021, submission deadline, and we ask that all submissions are emailed to Dr. Peter Joseph Gloviczki, 1st Vice President of CCA, <pgloviczki@coker.edu> as attachments. Feel free to send any submission questions to Dr. Gloviczki. He is glad to be helpful. 

Once refereed, all submitters will be notified of the status of their submissions. We will ask that accepted participants record a brief, explanatory video of their work and upload the video to YouTube. We imagine each video will be somewhere between two and twelve minutes in length. Once uploaded, please share a link to the video via email with Dr. Gloviczki. Dr. Gloviczki will then include that link in the conference program. Our hope is that conference participants will be able to view the videos ahead of time and that the conference date/time (via Zoom) will primarily be used to discuss the work. Acceptance of work carries with it the expectation that accepted authors will both submit a link to a video of their work to Dr. Gloviczki and participate in the live Zoom experience.  We believe this two-step process (recorded video and live Zoom) is a dynamic way to share work via digital modalities and we are excited to utilize it. 

We view the Zoom experience during the conference days (September 24-25, 2021) as a conversational space. Participants will have the opportunity to dialogue about posted videos, which will be organized into relevant sessions. We aim to hold both the keynote session and the business meeting live via Zoom during the conference days. We are excited to convene our community virtually in 2021.

As always, feel free to be in touch with any questions. We look forward to receiving your submissions! 

The Executive Committee of the Carolinas Communication Association