A little background…

After over twenty years in academia, I retired from my position as Associate Dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota to focus on creative ways to foster transformative thinking and intergenerational healing.

Over the past two decades, I’ve engaged in multiple community partnerships to uplift and share local Black histories, support BIPOC writers, share accessible yoga practices, curate panels, host conferences and facilitate intergenerational story sharing. I have published multiple books and articles on media, race, gender, and politics, including Dispatches from the Color Line (2007) and The Post-Racial Mystique (2014), and the edited collection Dangerous Discourses: Feminism, Gun Violence & Civic Life (2016).

I earned my PhD in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and was a doctoral fellow in the Center for Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1998-99). In 1999, I began my first faculty position at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2007 I moved to the University of Minnesota. As a Bush Fellow in 2017, I explored intergenerational story sharing, healing trauma, and became a certified yoga instructor. I live in St. Paul and am always on the lookout for interesting birds.