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Home › Directory › Dr. Elizabeth Dickinson

Dr. Elizabeth Dickinson

Dr. Elizabeth Dickinson

Assistant Professor of Communication

Department of Communication
601 South Church Street
Winston-Salem , NC 27101
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Education:

  1. PhD, University of New Mexico, Communication Studies, 2010
  2. MA, New Mexico State University, Communication Studies, 1998
  3. BA, California State University San Bernardino, Communication Studies, 1996

Biography:

Dr. Dickinson came to Salem College in 2011, where she teaches and researches in the areas of communication, culture, and environmental communication. Dr. Dickinson is from California, where she completed a BA in Organizational Communication from California State University San Bernardino and then earned an MA in Intercultural Communication from New Mexico State University. For several years she was an English teacher in Japan and a university communication instructor in Beijing. She worked in marketing in Los Angeles and at a nonprofit in San Diego before becoming a communication instructor at Florida International University and Miami-Dade College. She returned to graduate school and earned her PhD from the University of New Mexico in 2010. She has experience in academic, intercultural, nonprofit, and business settings.

Teaching:

Dr. Dickinson’s teaching philosophy is based on the concepts of understanding, challenge, collaboration, and respect. Her goal is to establish a space where students can venture to learn while feeling challenged, respected, appreciated, and enlightened. She sees classrooms and knowledge as mental, psychological, emotional, and spiritual sites where students can challenge themselves through scholarship and with and through their peers and instructor. She strives for students to achieve higher levels of communication literacy and theoretical depth and facilitates her classes in a hands-on, laboratory style format.

Teaching & Mentoring Awards:

  • The Graduate Student Mentor Award (2010), Office of Graduate Studies, University of New Mexico
  • Susan Deese-Roberts Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (2008), University of New Mexico
  • The Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award (2008), Department of Communication & Journalism, University of New Mexico
  • Jean Civikly-Powell New Teaching Assistant Teaching Award (2007), Department of Communication & Journalism, University of New Mexico
  • International Communication Association (ICA) Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award (1998), Department of Communication, New Mexico State University

Courses Taught:

  • Introduction to Communication
  • Public Speaking/Oral Communication
  • Persuasive Communication
  • Nonverbal Communication
  • Conflict & Communication
  • Intercultural Communication
  • Gender & Communication
  • Interpersonal Communication
  • Business & Professional Communication
  • Service Learning
  • Teaching the Basic Course (Communication Pedagogy) (graduate level)
  • Reasons for Hope (Environmental Education) (graduate level)
  • Teaching Environmental Concepts (graduate level)
  • Environment and Society  (graduate level)

Research:

Dr. Dickinson’s scholarship centers on qualitative research in two subjects—environmental communication and culture and communication. She incorporates qualitative and rhetorical approaches and methods, including participant observation, interviewing, rhetorical criticism, textual analysis, and critical methods. In environmental communication, Dr. Dickinson examines commercialized and consumer conceptualizations of nature, environmental education, and space/place. In culture and communication, she studies how cultural ideologies are produced, consumed, performed, and resisted through communication. Dr. Dickinson’s dissertation is based on a study in the North Carolina Educational State Forest system, where she examined conservationist education practices.

Research Awards:

  • Top Paper Award (2011), Environmental Communication Interest Group, Western States Communication Association (WSCA) Conference, Monterrey, CA
  • Ev Rogers Doctoral Research Scholar Award (2009), Department of Communication, University of New Mexico
  • Top Four Paper Award (2008), Environmental Communication Interest Group, National Communication Association (NCA) Conference, San Diego, CA
  • Top Four Paper Award (2008), Communication Theory Division, Western States Communication Association (WSCA) Conference, Denver, CO
  • Top Student Paper Award (2008), Communication Theory Division, Western States Communication Association (WSCA) Conference, Denver, CO

Inspirations:

  • My sweetheart, my three brothers, and my precious niece
  • Beautiful walks in North Carolina’s forests
  • Great books
  • My students

Hobbies:

  •  Cooking
  • Watching movies
  • Yoga
  • Reading

Favorite Quotation:

At all times and in all places and under all circumstances,
Give your attention to people and events one at a time;
Otherwise you will never give your attention to anything.
Be as honest as you know how;
Otherwise you will always rage against your own lies.
Curb your will to control events and people;
Otherwise you will always be unhappy.
Give freely to others;
Take freely what others give:
Otherwise you will give and receive nothing.
—Balto’s Tonic, Dick Ringler, Mogador

Departments:

Communication: