Returning from the West(ern States Communication Conference)

I flew back this morning from Albuquerque, NM where the 83rd annual convention of the Western States Communication Association (WSCA) is being held. It is a smaller, regional conference, but it takes place in my home: the West. And though the West is a very general area in this regard, I take it to be any place including and between the West Coast and the Mountain States (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico). But the part of the West I like best is high altitude desert, or in Forest Service-speak: Pinyon-Juniper woodland (PJ, for short). I spent the weekend in the heart of it.

While there I delivered a short paper on the rhetoric of early labor activist Sarah G. Bagley to probably the fullest room I have ever seen at a conference (also a rather small room, so to say standing-room-only might be a little misleading). I can report that Rhetoric and Public Address is alive and well in the West. In fact, it is the largest interest group at WSCA. I attended the conference with a close friend who studies organizational communication. He reported that Org. Comm (as it is known by its adepts) is a significantly smaller interest group at WSCA. Being concerned about its prospects, he and I spent some time wondering why: Why is Org. Comm smaller than Rhetoric, especially as there appears to be so many more jobs available in Org. Comm? While discussing various reasons I came up with the rather bold, if unsubstantiated (but totally testable) claim:

There is an inverse relationship between the number of panels submitted to an interest group and that interest group's prospects on the job market.

My armchair data is this: By most accounts, there are a lot of job openings in organizational communication, whereas there are fewer job openings in rhetoric (even fewer in public address). I don't think I quite convinced my friend, but what do you think?