In fall 2020 the Department of Communication Studies expands its faculty expertise in the area of rhetoric and civic engagement with the addition of newly hired Assistant Professor Morgan Johnson.

This May, Johnson will complete her Ph.D. in communication arts and sciences with a concentration in rhetoric from Pennsylvania State University. She earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in English with a concentration in linguistics from Indiana University.

Johnson researches discourses of racial in/justice in the United States, with much of her work focusing on police violence. Her current projects examine rhetorics of personhood and citizenship in policing oversight initiatives that followed the 2014 Ferguson unrest, including crowdsourced and media databases, federal task forces, civilian review boards, nonprofit organizations, and the Mothers of the Movement.

“Morgan is going to bring richness and complexity to our teaching, research, and service,” says Greg Dickinson, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies Greg Dickinson says. “She combines those three areas into a powerful and compelling whole where her scholarship motivates the teaching, and the teaching and service weave together to inform her scholarship.”

Johnson says she’s impressed by the breadth and depth of community engagement fostered at CSU.

“I’m looking forward to sharing in the vibrancy of the Communication Studies Department,” Johnson says, “and the Colorado sunshine!”