Elizabeth Rhoades / staff writer

ECA participantsThree Pitt-Greensburg students will be presenting at a regional communication conference in Pittsburgh on May 2. Communication majors Maggie Samole, Samantha Konkus and Mary McConnel have all won prizes for papers submitted to the Eastern Communication Association Convention.

Assistant Professor of Communication Anne Czerwinski is the faculty advisor of Lambda Pi Eta, the national commuication honor society. She encouraged Lambda Pi Eta members to enter the competition along every student in her classes.

Czerwinski said she also asked other communication professors to encourage their students to take part in this opportunity.

“I figured I had nothing to lose,” Samole said.

All three of the students were notified by email they had won in late January.

The wait was overly long for some of the participants.

“I had actually given up hope of hearing from them since it had been awhile since I submitted it,” Konkus said.

All three student papers were written for a class assignment. Samole’s was written for Czerwinski’s class, TV and Society¸ while both Konkus and McConnell’s paper were written for Rhetorical Process, also a Czerwinski class.

The competition includes students from around the nation competing for the top four spots in the Top Paper Proposal.

Samole was one of the four papers chosen this year. Her paper will be read at the conference.

“I am nervous," she said. "I am comfortable speaking in front of people but I have never been to a conference with hundreds of other students.”

Samole wrote her paper on the television series "M*A*S*H" and how the view point of the Korean War in the show is reflected in the then current viewpoint of the Vietnam War. Czerwinski said that winning this contest helped Samole get into the masters program at IUP, which she will attend in the fall.

Konkus prepared her paper on a rhetorical analysis of George Bush’s speech to Congress after 9/11.

McConnell’s paper was done on the “Real Beauty” advertising campaign for Dove soaps. Both Konkus and McConnell are going to be at the conference to present their paper and poster.

The conference runs from May 1 to 4. All the UPG students are presenting on the May 2.