Silvestri to deliver Huck Boyd Lecture at KSU

Lisa Silvestri, author of “Friended at the Front: Social Media in the American War Zone,” will be at Kansas State University April 20 and 21 to participate in several events.

She will deliver the 17th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media — “Remembering our friends at the front” — at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, April 20, at the K-State Alumni Center Ballroom. The lecture is free and open to the public.

That day, she also will participate in a roundtable discussion on the impact of social media on soldiers and families in transition.

On Friday, April 21, she will be the keynote speaker at the annual conference of Kansas Professional Communicators.

Her visit is co-sponsored by the Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications and K-State’s Office of Military and Veterans Affairs.

Gloria Freeland, director of the center and assistant professor in journalism and mass communications, said Silvestri will discuss how social media are changing what it’s like to be at war, exploring its impact — “good, bad and ugly.”

Ret. Lt. Col. Art DeGroat, executive director of Military and Veterans Affairs, said Silvestri’s visit to campus is important and timely.

“Silvestri’s research is profoundly relevant and needed to help us understand the uniqueness of the Post 9-11 generation of veterans and their families,” said Art DeGroat, executive director of Military and Veterans Affairs. “Engaging with her at Kansas State University will enhance our abilities as being a premier military-inclusive public research university.”

Jean Folkerts, interim director of the A.Q. Miller School, agrees. Silvestri’s visit gives faculty and students a great opportunity to understand a unique use of social media—that of soldiers at the front being able to communicate with their families,” she said.