The North Carolina Association of Broadcasters gave School of Communications Associate Dean Connie Book an award for outstanding leadership and dedication to the NCAB.
Book was given the award not just because of her involvement in the NCAB, but also because of the role she played during the nation’s switch from analog to digital television. Book educated students on the change and took a group to Wilmington, N.C., where she coordinated call centers in the area during the September 2008 DTV switch.
After the historic day, Book and alumna Lauren Limerick testified Sept. 16 before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet to discuss their findings. Recommendations from the students who answered calls in Wilmington were used to create a list of national standards for the nationwide transition, which were implemented to help ease the change across the country.
When the entire nation went digital in June 2009, Book and her students operated the state DTV call center at Elon University, where they took 1,900 phone calls from residents across North Carolina who were experiencing issues with their digital television signals.
Book also advises the NCAB in its review of scholarship applications, and she helps select the winners every year. She serves at the governor’s invitation on the board of the North Carolina Agency for Public Telecommunications, and she’s the acting executive director of the Sunshine Center for the North Carolina Open Government Coalition, which is housed in the School of Communications.
Book began teaching at Elon in 2000, and she has conducted extensive research in the field of telecommunications. She authored the book “DTV and the Consumer” (published by Wiley), which explores how the nation’s change to digital television affects consumers.