Janie Harden Fritz (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1993) is professor and director of the B. A., M.A., and Ph.D. programs in the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies. Her research focuses on communicative practices that constitute, sever, and restore the ties that bind persons to the institutions of which they are a part. She is the author of Professional Civility: Communicative Virtue at Work (Peter Lang, 2013, which received the 2013 Clifford G. Christians Ethics Research Award from the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research and the 2014 Everett Lee Hunt Award from the Eastern Communication Association), coeditor (with S. Alyssa Groom) of Communication Ethics and Crisis: Negotiating Differences in Public and Private Spheres (2012, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press), and coeditor (with Becky L. Omdahl) of Problematic Relationships in the Workplace (Peter Lang Press, 2006) and Problematic Relationships in the Workplace, Volume 2 (Peter Lang, 2012). Her most recent work focuses on the intersection of professional civility and leadership practices. Her work has been published in a number of scholarly journals. She is a past president of the Pennsylvania Communication Association, the Eastern Communication Association, and the Religious Communication Association, and she currently serves as the executive director of the Religious Communication Association. She has received numerous several awards for teaching, scholarship, and service, including
the Eugene P. Beard Award for Leadership in Ethics from Duquesne University.