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Since becoming one of the University's first communication professors, author Charles R. Conrad has been published many times, but just recently his research has gone north.
On family vacations in the western part of Canada, Conrad rode ferries from one island to another talking to locals about their culture and comparing it to life in the U.S., and many times the conversation would turn to health care. Conrad said he was fascinated by the pride Canadians had for their national health care system.
"They would ask me 'how can you live with a system where half of the people in your country file bankruptcy because of lack of health insurance?'" Conrad said.
As a communication researcher, Conrad wanted to know more, and turned this interest into the subject of his research and latest book, "In the Long Run We're All Dead: Organizations, Rhetoric and Health Policymaking."
He carried a book about the Canadian health care system with him on the ferry as a reference when talking with locals. He said he sought answers beyond the obvious differences between the two health care systems.
"Why is it Americans believe we have the best health care when we are No. 1 in cost and 29th in infant mortality, below Guatemala? How did this happen and why does it stay that way?" Conrad said.
Observation incited this particular research, and observation continues to be a skill that inspires many of Conrad's research efforts, he said.
"I am curious and I have come to realize that there are lots of questions that weren't figured out," Conrad said. "I would have to answer them myself."
The focus of Conrad's research is organizational rhetoric and communication, analyzing and observing the communication within an organization to find whether it has a positive or negative effect on the organization.
Conrad has also offered great insight into how communication that reinforces organizational power and arrogance can contribute to huge mistakes, said Communication department head Richard Street For example, he identified the Challenger space shuttle disaster as potentially preventable had miscommunications between the NASA organization decision-makers and scientists been eliminated.
Conrad received his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1972 and his master's in 1979 and doctorate degree in 1980 from Kansas State University.
Conrad spent 10 years teaching at the University of North Carolina before coming to the University to build a communication program from the ground up, he said.
"There really is no better job than being a full professor in a major research university," Conrad said. "I get to spend my time researching things I am interested in and teaching students who want to be here. It is about as perfect as perfect can get."
Before his first lectures at the University, Conrad broke his jaw in a car accident - a situation he said provided him the opportunity to observe and come to understand students before entering the classroom.
"A&M students are so obsessive-compulsive and over-controlling that it is possible to do a discussion with over 100 students," he said. "They are polite. They actually wait until the other is done."
Conrad said he knows what teaching style works for him, and doubts it would work for anyone else. It has evolved over the course of 25 years of teaching, he said, but he still tries new things in the classroom, connecting coursework to current events.
"Every day, Dr. Conrad would walk into class with a stack of newspaper articles that were somehow connected to what we were learning about," said Rachel Plugge, Class of 2009. "He always broke down these enormous theoretical concepts into events we were actually living through and witnessing."
Conrad received the Most Inspiring Professor award at the University of North Carolina, Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education award from the National Communication Association and the university-wide Distinguished Teaching Award from the Association of Former Students at Texas A&M.
"He seems to bring out the best in students, particularly honors students," Street said. "He is arguably a master teacher."
Conrad has won more teaching awards than any other faculty member in the communication department.
He spends 25 hours each week doing research. Conrad said he views teaching and research as synonymous, with his research often being stimulated by student questions.
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