Jon Hess's home page

The Home Page of
Jon Hess Department of Communication
University of Missouri

Home

Research

Measures

Teaching

Grad studies

Links

About me

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“All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.”

-- quote attributed to Adlai Stevenson

Do you know?
• How can you tell if someone is attracted to you or doesn’t like you?
• Is it ok to yell at your boss if he or she really deserves it?
• What determines whether a company will act ethically or not?
• Does a teacher’s style of communication determine how much her or his students learn in the class?

These questions are issues I have examined in my research. Find out the answers to these questions on my research fun facts section!

Daring enough?
Would he walk across a log suspended 30 feet above the ground? Your answer is on the photo page.

Hello! You’ve found the web page of Jon Hess, formerly an associate professor of communication at the University of Missouri. On this page, you’ll find information about my research, my classes, and about me.

On July 1, 2008, I moved to the University of Dayton to chair their Department of Communication. I tremendously enjoyed my time at the University of Missouri, and feel honored to have the privilege of 11 years here at this fantastic university. This web page will remain up as a resource for a little while (until whenever MU closes out the web space after my departure). Please check with me at UD if you need to get in touch about anything.

Research
I do research on communication in personal relationships. Of greatest interest to me are how people use communication to maintain relationships, and the role closeness and distance play in personal relationships. I am also interested in how the student-teacher relationship impacts the educational process and its outcomes, and in ethical issues in interpersonal communication.
On the research pages you’ll find information about my research interests, communication of my research findings via scholarly publications or media appearances, and summaries of some of my findings. The measures page is a resource for scholars who may wish to use instruments that colleagues and I have developed. On that page you will find a conceptual overview of each scale, the items that comprise it, and diagnostic information such as reliability and validity.

Teaching
I teach classes on personal and family relationships, instructional communication, communication ethics, and more. The teaching page contains links to syllabi for the classes I teach here at MU. Additionally, it contains resources such as a guideline to APA style and links to important library sites. Look for these at the bottom of the lefthand column.

Graduate studies at MU
I serve as Director of Graduate Studies at for our department. If you are interested in learning more about our graduate program, follow that link for more information.

Other pages
The links page includes links to sites useful for communication students or scholars. These sites include scholarly associations, Ellis library databases and other MU sites, the issues of Ethica for which I served as editor (Ethica is the newsletter of NCA’s Communication Ethics Commission), and information about whether the latest virus report you heard is real or just a hoax.
If you’d like to know a bit more about who I am, you can check the about me page. For those who prefer pictures, the photo page contains a few pictures related to myself and MU’s Department of Communication.

How to contact me
Office location: 203a Switzler Hall (enter through room 209)
Mailing address: Department of Communication; University of Missouri; 115 Switzler Hall; Columbia, MO 65211-2310
Office phone: 573/882-7795
Department phone: 573/882-4431
Department fax: 573/884-5672
E-mail: hessj@missouri.edu