“Communication is Everything”

Hi. Hello. Thank you for having me. And congratulations on getting to present on your research this week! What a cool opportunity that not every undergraduate in every field has. Getting to be here and learn from all of you makes me feel so grateful to be part of a discipline that actually wants to hear the voices and perspectives of young people.

I hope you don’t take that for granted, and I don’t imagine you do, as you have probably experienced a type of ageism yourself, where you maybe have been discounted or dismissed for being too young or “inexperienced” by someone else’s standards. So, I hope you can take a moment to feel grateful to our field—to those who came before us and created this space for us. I, myself, am feeling acutely aware of this right now as someone who is also finding their way in this discipline and in the world—knowing I have so much to learn and so much to offer. And despite this, as you start to think about continuing your academic careers, beginning to work, or whatever is next for you, I imagine that you still might be feeling acutely aware of your age and not yet having the kind of knowledge that just comes with time. I know what it feels like to look at your resume and feel a little insecure that it’s not quite as filled out or impressive looking as the templates you found online. And perhaps it doesn’t need to be said, but I still think it good for you to hear it: you’re more than your resume or transcript or LinkedIn bio.

So, I encourage you to shift your focus to the wealth of experience and perspective you do have because it is incredibly valuable. Just because you are young doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to offer; in fact, it’s the opposite—it means you for sure have something really unique and important to offer. You deserve to think of it that way. And, in my experience, the best bosses, mentors, and educators will treat you like it is. So, seek out those people because they are out there. But I think I’m getting ahead of myself here…

As I was introduced: my name’s Abbie. I graduated from Ball State University in 2022 with a degree in interpersonal communication. During college I was also an RA and competed on the Speech Team. I really loved college, and I’m happy to report I have really been loving life after college as well—if that provides any comfort to you as you navigate your own, inevitable transition out of undergrad. Since graduating I have been able to continue to work with communication in a way I could really never have expected; mainly, I get to do this through the podcast I host called Stories Lived. Stories Told., in which I talk to various guests from various fields and use a communication perspective as a lens through which to explore their work as a way to demonstrate that communication is in everything. But I’ll talk more about myself later. First, I want to talk a little bit about you!

Now, I don’t know you, so I can’t actually say that much, but there is one assumption I feel pretty safe making: If you are here today, then I assume you are the kind of student that I was… not studying communication because it sounded easy, but because you actually love to learn about it. And, clearly, not only learn about it, but engage in research related to it, and continue to be curious about it, and ask questions of it because you know despite the wealth of knowledge in our field, there is always more to learn.

And, truthfully, if you are here today, then you are actually even more advanced than I was because I never did research like this or submitted anything to a conference as an undergrad. But, in a different way I was doing my own kind of “research.”

See, the thing that I loved the most about studying communication, is that I left the classroom and immediately got to put what I was learning into practice. In my own life and relationships, I got to play with different theories, different ways of communicating, telling stories, and making meaning. My “research” happened in practice—as I navigated conflict with roommates, started dating my partner, collaborated with co-workers and residents in my RA job, and worked with my teammates on the speech team. Everything I was studying was so real for me because I went looking for it.

Now, I do want to recognize the difference between my “research” and your Research— (namely that mine required no IRB approval)… and, still, I want to take the time I have up here today—especially, as we all gather here to celebrate amazing research, and learn from each other, and generate new ideas together—to offer my version of this week’s theme of “widening the scope,” which is to open up our understanding of what communication studies does and who it is for, to expand all of our minds about what studying, working with, and living Communication looks like. One great place to start—the “implications” section of your research—it isn’t fluff. It’s actually the whole point.

I recall sitting in my interpersonal communication classes and feeling so empowered by all the knowledge I was learning. I remember thinking that this is stuff everyone should get to know, not just those of us who choose to major in it. Everyone takes public speaking and finance 101—but I thought everyone should really have to take intro to interpersonal—or even better—we should be taught this stuff as kids in school. (Now, yes, my story is all about interpersonal communication, but for those of you who are studying other tracks, I imagine that there is still some overlap here because no matter what level of communication you are looking at, it’s all people and relationships and stories).

I like to say that the reason I studied communication is because I grew up in a family that didn’t. And I say that tongue in cheek—but there is truth to it—and I think it’s a part of why I immediately wanted to share the knowledge I got. Because I knew from my own experience that so much of the time, conflict, pain in relationships, struggles to communicate is about lack of access to information like this. Not a lack of caring, or loving, or trying—just a lack of tools.

I’m thinking about my own family here, and when my grandfather passed away when I was in 8th grade. Everybody in my family grieved in very different ways and they didn’t have the communication tools to navigate that well, so still even now, even 11 years later—this is something that creates tension and misunderstanding and hurt in my family, when it could have been a chance to connect and take care of each other. Again, not a lack of caring, or loving, or trying even, just a lack of access. We could have created something so different if my family members had access to even just a fraction of the tools, language, and ideas that exist in our field. You probably have similar stories coming to mind as well about times when you experienced misses in communication that didn’t have to happen.

All of this is to say that my personal opinion is that it is ridiculous that it is assumed all of us will stumble into healthy ways of communicating whether interpersonally, publicly, organizationally, whatever—when we don’t have to leave it up to chance like that. Our field has the ability to minimize so much of that uncertainty. Communication studies should be for everyone because communication is something everyone does, right?

So, for me, the work I am committed to is all about translating theory to practice and equipping people to better navigate their own communicating. I think this “stuff” we know can make a real difference in our social worlds. And, wow, we need a “real difference” so bad right now. My hope is that you will keep this in mind- whatever your path forward looks like- that you have the tools at your disposal to make a real difference. Like, the practices you employed in your research work great for life, too—posing questions, forming hypotheses, observing, drawing conclusions, communicating findings!

Whatever life you end up leading after you graduate, remember that everything you learned here is still relevant and available to you. The usefulness of your communication degree doesn’t begin and end in your professional life. While you can feel confident that these tools will enable to you make a real difference in your work world, don’t forget about the real difference you can make in your personal worlds, too. In your families, friend groups, communities. I think under capitalism, we can become so focused on organizations, we forget what we can do as individuals. What I want you to be reminded of here is that work or school isn’t everything, but communication is.

To take you back to my student-self again: As much as I loved what I was studying, and in fact it was probably because of how much I loved what I was studying, I remember feeling lost and overwhelmed thinking about leaving school. Now, I won’t ask for a show of hands for if anyone is feeling similarly overwhelmed, you can just know for yourself whether or not that resonates. For me, I didn’t know what I wanted to do—just that I wanted to eat, sleep, and breathe communication. But how? I didn’t have a good sense of what my options were. For a long time, I thought the only way to do that was to stay in academia. And that is one really great path, and you can see for yourself at the graduate fair today, but because I was going to school during COVID, I found myself feeling academically burnt out. I’ve always loved school, so I knew I had the capacity to really enjoy more of it, but I didn’t think I would if I went straight into another program. So my path has diverged from that for now. I certainly plan on going back to school, but I’m not in so much of a rush to hurry back just yet because I really value the learning I am doing and experiences I am having outside of school. Like, I get to come do cool things like this!

So, I want to end with my story of how I ended up here and the things led me to be before you today, many of which I never could have anticipated, so there’s a hint to listen for emergence in this story:

So, during my senior year of college, I had to complete a creative thesis project—many of you will do similar things—and I chose to create a short podcast talking about a specific theory of communication. I really just happened to choose Coordinated Management of Meaning out of my comm theory textbook, so a huge thank you to Em Griffin (who I finally got to meet this week) and “A First Look at Communication Theory” without whom none of the rest of this story would be possible! Some of you might not even be familiar with CMM because it isn’t included in every comm theory textbook—which is just another great reminder that for as much as we learn within the classroom—there is always more out there to learn and other avenues for learning, too.

In creating that project, I learned about and decided to boldly reach out to the CMM Institute, who then asked if I would continue the podcast as a resource for their community. Long story short—I became more and more engaged and today I stand before you as the Executive Director of the CMM Institute, getting to do what I love in a way that I never could have predicted. So, my little, fulfilling-a-requirement, 3-episode podcast, is now in its fourth season and I’ve done over 130 episodes and it’s part of my fulltime job.

I genuinely could have never seen this coming. What I hope you hear in this, is that what you want to do, where you want to go from here is yours to create. In fact, if you’re anything like me, your job might not even exist yet. I really believe that I am where I am today because of both the generosity of the people I have found at the CMM Institute who were so willing to engage me and also because of my own ability to take chances and make things happen for myself. So, I wish you both of these things as well because that makes you unstoppable.

At the beginning, I didn’t know how to make a podcast—to record or edit audio or publish episodes! But, in a true testament to research as practice and practice as research, I learned as I went. So, here’s what I’m saying today: I don’t know what’s next for you. And, truthfully, I don’t entirely know what’s next for me. But, what I want to offer all of us, is a way to do whatever it is that is next based on what I’ve experienced so far—which, again, has been admittedly short, but nonetheless, meaningful. The way forward for us is rooted in curiosity, emergence, and creativity. So, let yourself be led by curiosity. Never stop learning, asking questions, and making new things (you’re already off to a great start); and let yourself be led by emergence. Let go of control where you can and learn to improvise because it will serve you so well (that is probably the hardest and most transformative lesson I’ve learned); and let yourself be led by creativity. Don’t get boxed in by what you think the pre-existing options are. Your life is yours to create how you want it. The story is yours to tell. And meaning is yours to make.

So, congratulations again on being researchers and practitioners, and not only because of what you are here to share this week, but because of all the research, all the learning, and all the teaching you already do and will continue to do in every part of your life.

I look forward to seeing what you will create. Thank you.

Abbie VanMeter
Undergraduate Honors Research Luncheon
CSCA Annual Conference, March 2025