top of page
Abstract Objects

The National Communication Association (NCA)

Death and Dying Division

During the National Communication Association Annual Convention, 2023 (Maryland, USA) the Death & Dying Division was officially accepted as a recognized division and interest group after two years of intensive community service, campaigning, and petitioning.

 

Members of the End-of-Life and Death Scholars nonprofit originally established this organizing effort. The division operates as a separate entity, belonging to and funded by the National Communication Association and its members.​ The End-of-Life and Death Scholars (Death Scholars, Inc.) continues to support the online archive of the Death & Dying Division, while NCA supports the place-making and space-making for the division.

 

All NCA-specific membership portal links are found below.

Please note that membership to the End-of-Life and Death Scholars (Death Scholars, Inc.) nonprofit is separate from NCA membership.

 

Abstract Objects

NCA Death & Dying Division
Mission Statement

The Death and Dying Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) supports the communication-oriented study of death, dying, and bereavement. 

 

We believe death is truly an interdisciplinary research focus and welcome scholars from all adjacent disciplines. Our mission is to promote research, teaching, and community engagement related to the intersection of communication, death, dying, end-of-life, bereavement, and life/death, inclusive of all methodologies and epistemologies.

​
 

Join the NCA
Death & Dying
Division:

Communication studies (and communication-adjacent) scholars are welcome to join the division at NCA. Use NCA's membership portal (linked below) to join the division.

 

The NCA Death & Dying Division enthusiastically encourages undergraduate and graduate students to be involved.

 

All questions and inquiries may be sent to eoldeathscholars@gmail.com

​

NCA Membership Portal Link:
https://portal.natcom.org/become-a-member

​

Join our Mailing List:

https://forms.gle/tWzDVQjSncMHHBgN9

​

About NCA Interest Groups: 
https://www.natcom.org/about-nca/membership-and-interest-groups 

"Let's talk about death!"

2025-2026

Division Executive Board Members:

  • Immediate Past Chair | Laura Bruns, PhD

  • Chair | Colleen Campbell Pendleton

  • Vice Chair | Cheyenne Zaremba, PhD(c)

  • Vice Chair-Elect | Nicole Costantini, PhD

  • Secretary | Reilly Card

  • Pedagogy and Andragogy Chair | Mike Alvarez, PhD

  • Graduate Student Representatives | Andy Allen Acosta, Jr. and Anna Simank

Advisory Board Director:

  • ​Nicole Costantini, PhD

​​NCA Division Advisory Board Members:

History of the
Division:

Read the original proposal for the National Communication Association here: 

Death and Dying Division at NCA 

​​

Read the founding Chair's statements here: 
A Home for Death; Welcome from Inaugural Chair Laura Bruns

​

Featured in SPECTRA Magazine

spectra.png

Read more about the history of the Death & Dying Division at NCA's SPECTRA magazine:

NCA Division Founding Members

  • Laura Bruns

  • Colleen Campbell Pendleton

  • Cheyenne Zaremba

  • Howard Rodriguez-Mori

  • Emily Scheinfeld

  • Jillian Rosa

  • J.J. Jones

  • Stephenson Brooks Whitestone

  • Mike Alvarez 

  • Christian Seiter

  • Geoffrey Luurs 

  • Heather Smith

  • Reilly Card

  • Jeannine Foster

  • Jessica Cherry

  • R. Amanda Cooper

  • Drew A. Bailey

  • Elizabeth A. Craig

  • Christine Salkin Davis

  • Jocelyn M. DeGroot

  • Carolyn Ellis

  • ​Sharmila Pixy Ferris

  • Lindsey Harvell-Bowman

  • Chandler Marr

  • Becky Belter Roberts

  • Karen Schlag

Abstract Objects

NCA Mission Statement

"The National Communication Association advances Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry.

 

NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among our faculties, within our membership, in the workplace, and in the classroom; NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion."

​

Official Website: https://www.natcom.org/

Past
Leadership

2023-2024

Division Executive Board Members:

Disclosure

The End-of-Life and Death Scholars nonprofit (Death Scholars, Inc.) does not own or preside over the NCA Death & Dying Division's bylaws, membership, or organizational matters. While historically connected in leadership overlaps, these are separate institutions with different strategic agendas and events.

​

The End-of-Life and Death Scholars nonprofit supports the need for transparency, history, and record-keeping on behalf of the NCA Death & Dying Division in providing this landing page to access information. We maintain a sharing-of-resources between members of both groups and strive to support communication and communication-adjacent scholars of end-of-life, death, and grief/bereavement at all levels of career advancement. By sharing resources, both groups aim to develop the next generation of death scholars in the Communication Studies academic discipline.

​

Both groups also emphasize the need for transparent archival practices, including listing founding members and updating leadership contacts as both organizations progress over annual elections. 

​

Further information can be requested by contacting eoldeathscholars@gmail.com -- all correspondence can be forwarded to the current elected Chair of the Death & Dying Division.

bottom of page