ST. GEORGE – Dixie State College of Utah’s weekly noontime “Dixie Forum: A Window on the World” series continues this Tuesday, April 5, featuring a presentation by on communication differences between the genders by DSC Dean of Arts and Letters Dr. Don Hinton. The Forum will begin at 12 noon, in the Dunford Auditorium of the Browning Resource Center on the DSC campus. Admission is free for all community members, DSC students, and faculty and staff.
Dr. Hinton’s presentation, entitled “Updates to a Communication Perspective: Redefining the ‘Gender-ation Gap’ … or Are Men and Women Really Worlds Apart?,” is based on a faculty honors lecture he presented a few years ago, in which he explored some of the research into the communication differences between men and women. He will explain the causation as to why genders communicate differently and introduce some principles of communication theory, while extending that theory to the “Gender-ation” gap. Dr. Hinton will also discuss how he tried to redefine what many see as gender-based conflict in ways that would help people connect the worlds we live in, male or female.
“I was convinced then and am more convinced now that there is a more productive way to view those problems than to see them as gender-based,” Dr. Hinton said. “There are principles in the theory of communication that shed some significant light on those problems.”
Dr. Hinton, a native of Hurricane, has served on the faculty at Dixie State for 33 years, where he taught communication courses, coached the Dixie College Forensic Squad and directed theater productions. He served in many faculty leadership capacities at Dixie, including as Chair of the Fine Arts Department on two separate occasions, and was appointed Dean of Arts and Letters in 2006.
Hinton attended Dixie College in 1965-66 and again in 1969, before going on to earn his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Speech and Drama from Brigham Young University. He then served as an officer in the United State Army for nearly five years, and continued his service as a reserve officer, completing summer tours with the Army for six years at 6th Army headquarters in San Francisco, five years at the Pentagon, and three years at the Army’s Military Traffic Management Command in Alexandria, Va. In 1989, Hinton completed work on his Ph.D. in Interpersonal Communication at Southern Illinois University.
The Dixie Forum series will continue each Tuesday at 12 noon through the rest of the spring semester. Upcoming guest speakers include DSC Art Professor Dennis Martinez and a number of DSC art students, who will discuss their experiences and processes they go through in creating art on April 12th. The Forum will also serve as a preview of the Annual DSC Art Showcase, which will be on display in the DSC Eccles Fine Arts Center Sears Art Mueseum Gallery beginning on Monday, April 11th.
For further information on DSC’s Dixie Forum series, please contact Terre Burton at 435-652-7812 or at [email protected], or Marius van der Merwe at 435-652-7924 or at [email protected].