ODU's Socha to Give Reading, Book Signing Tonight at VBHEC

Old Dominion University Associate Professor Tom Socha will give a talk and sign copies of his new book, "Families Communicating with Children," at the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center Tuesday, April 19. The talk begins at 7 p.m. in Room 244.

Socha, who teaches communication and serves as the graduate program director of the new Master of Arts program in Lifespan and Digital Communication, wrote the book with co-author Julie Yingling. It discusses the ways in which families can build confidence in and communicate effectively with their children. The talk and a reception are free and open to the public.

The new research-oriented graduate degree at ODU combines human communication and digital communication in a lifespan format. Socha sees the new degree as an opportunity for interdepartmental communication across the ODU campus. "The program can share expertise about digital communication and gaming with the ODU education college, knowledge about paper practices going digital with the ODU health sciences college, and how humans and mechanicals interface with the ODU engineering college," he said, citing a few examples.

Socha is a Bernard J. Brommel Award winner for Outstanding Scholarship and Distinguished Service in Family Communication and the recipient of three "Most Inspiring Faculty" awards from ODU honor students.

For more information about the April 19 event, visit www.odu.edu/vbhec or call 368-4108.