Associate professors Felecia Ross and Susan Kline won the "Top Overall Paper Award" in the African American Communication and Culture Division of the National Communication Association for their analysis of newspaper coverage of the black church in the Obama-Wright controversy.

Titled "Contextualizing the Black Church: Analysis of Newspaper Coverage in the Obama-Wright Controversy," Ross and Kline presented their paper at the 2019 NCA conference.

Their study was also published online in Journalism.