Jeanne Persuit has been elected president of the Eastern Communication Association, the oldest regional association in the communication discipline, for 2024-25. 

Persuit, a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, previously served as the first vice president and conference planner for the 2024 ECA Convention, which was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in March, according to a UNCW news release. 

“ECA was the first academic conference I ever attended; as a graduate student, I was able to volunteer and learn about this important service to our discipline firsthand,” Persuit stated in the release. “My first presentation of my research was also at ECA; as a doctoral student, I was learning how to communicate my ideas and get feedback from scholars in the field. ECA fostered the community that served as my academic home even after I came to Wilmington in 2008. Because of those experiences, I wanted to serve ECA in a leadership role.”

Persuit said in the release she hopes to increase conference accessibility, particularly for individuals facing financial constraints. 

“Since COVID, academic conferences have become more costly to plan, and travel is more expensive for our attendees,” she said. “Since ECA provides services and benefits to its members beyond the annual convention, I am working to communicate those benefits and make the association more accessible for undergraduate and graduate students; contingent faculty; and faculty who are not as well resourced.”