Broom Seed Grant Recipients in 2020

We are putting our money where our heart is.

In the fall we announced a new national seed grant for assistant professors to support their research. Even in our first call for proposals we had an unexpected and strong response.

Through a competitive selection process, the Broom Center selected these projects:

• Dr. David E. Clementson from the University of Georgia, whose experiment will test the effectiveness of narrative appeals used by PR spokespeople.
  
  

  Dr. Clementson is an assistant professor of public relations at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication. He earned his doctorate in communication in 2017 from Ohio State University, and is an alumnus of University of Miami and James Madison University. He has more than a dozen scholarly journal articles, which focuses on political public relations and issues of speaker credibility. He is currently on the leadership board for the Public Relations division for the National Communication Association.

• Dr. Holly Overton and Dr. Anli Xiao from University South Carolina, whose study is an early look at the emerging area of corporate social advocacy.

  Both Dr. Overton and Dr. Xiao are assistant professors at the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications. They separately earned their doctorate degrees from Pennsylvania State University, with Overton in 2016 and Xiao in 2018.

  Dr. Overton is an alumna of Shippensburg University, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She has more than 20 scholarly journal articles, and focuses on corporate social responsibility and prosocial behaviors. Dr. Overton serves as the master of mass communication program coordinator in her school.

  Dr. Xiao’s research focuses on CSR and stewardship. She is an alumna of the University of Missouri-Columbia.

It was important to our center’s namesake, Dr. Glen Broom, that untenured faculty get support for their research. That made it a priority for the Broom Center.

Dr. Broom felt strongly about research that informs the practice, rather than just describe those who do it. Looking at the news and the work of public relations professionals in the face of the pandemic, these findings from each of these studies will provide immediate actionable knowledge to the practice.