Our Origin Story

In 2020, Laura Bruns and Colleen Campbell Pendleton collaborated on a death-centered panel for the National Communication Association Conference (Health Communication Division), along with 3 other scholars. This panel was ultimately rejected by the conference, echoing a number of past rejections from scholars with similar sites of study, around the subject of death. One reviewer for the panel excitedly gave the quality of the panel a 10, stating, “WOW!!! This panel is the most diverse I have seen. I cannot wait to attend this session.” Reviewer number 2, on the other hand, found the panel inappropriate and underwhelming, saying, “With a broad and somewhat unfocused approach to this topic, I would have liked the panelists to be clearer about whether they are planning to present original research, and through the use of which methods.” For end-of-life and death-centered scholars who have never quite ‘fit’ in time-honored, established conference divisions, this dualistic feedback (ranging from excited/intrigued to utterly befuddled) is a common experience.

Where do death-centered scholars belong?
We’re not quite health, gerontology, organizational, or interpersonal, yet we utilize all these approaches and methodologies in our research. Death is messy. Researching death is messy; it is interdisciplinary, methodologically diverse, and notoriously difficult to categorize in human-centered academic scholarship. But researching death is a valid, valuable, and essential part of communication and communication-adjacent research.

Following their rejection, Laura and Colleen sought to establish a group where death and dying scholars could feel supported and validated for their work and collaborate to create a space of recognition for their scholarship as part of the communication discipline.

A Facebook group, EOL and Death Scholars, was created in September 2021 and garnered immediate popularity, gaining over 85 members within 2-months. Outreach for the EOL and Death Scholars group quickly established a community of over a hundred academics and scholars who came together to share resources and ideas about death and dying-related research.

In November 2021, Laura and Colleen organized the first digital meeting of the "EOL and Death Scholars" online, connecting scholars from across the nation to discuss the state of death and dying research in the field of communication. Since our first meeting, we have grown our leadership team from two death and dying scholars to an organizational leadership and web development team, that actively archive death and dying research. Our team has established several working groups to organize research projects and conference panels, as well as organized a professional network that brings death and dying scholars together.

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In 2022, Cheyenne Zaremba joined the effort to establish the National Communication Association’s Death & Dying Division, providing vital outreach and organizing efforts. Original signers of the NCA petition to establish the division included Laura Bruns, Colleen Campbell Pendleton, Cheyenne Zaremba, Howard Rodriguez-Mori, Emily Scheinfeld, Jillian A. Rosa, J.J. Jones, Stephenson Brooks Whitestone, Mike Alvarez, Christian Seiter, Geoffrey Luurs, Heather Smith, Reilly Card, Jeannine Foster, Jessica Cherry, R. Amanda Cooper, Drew A. Bailey, Elizabeth A. Craig, Christine Salkin Davis, Jocelyn M. DeGroot, Carolyn Ellis, Sharmila Pixy Ferris, Lindsey Harvell-Bowman, Chandler Marr, Becky Belter Roberts, and Karen Schlag.

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In 2024, Jillian A. Rosa became the incorporator for the official Death Scholars, Inc. nonprofit, based in Kentucky. With the help of Geoffrey Luurs, and Omicron Sigma Kappa at Murray State University, the nonprofit website continues to be funded and expanded as a landing page of resources for our community. The founding Board of Directors includes Laura Bruns (President), C. Campbell Pendleton (Vice President), Jillian A. Rosa (Incorporator, Grants and Funding Manager), J.J. Jones (DEI Chair, HR Membership Coordinator), and Geoffrey Luurs (Secretary). 

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