Tina M. Harris, Ph.D., has dedicated her pedagogy, research and service to empowering others to become global citizens.
As the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication Douglas L. Manship Sr.-Dori Maynard Race, Media, and Cultural Literacy Endowed Chair, the nation’s first and only position of its type, she has been recognized for her work around the world.
Harris’ research projects have over 25,000 reads and more than 2,458 citations, according to ResearchGate and Google Scholar. Furthermore, she has earned numerous awards for her groundbreaking research projects. In September, the National Communication Association (NCA) named Harris one of the recipients of its Distinguished Scholar Award for her lifetime of scholarly achievement in the field of human communication. Harris is the first Black woman scholar to earn recognition from NCA.
“It means a lot [to receive prestigious awards] because I can be an encouragement to other [people from historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups],” Harris said. “When they see me and hear my story, they can say, ‘if she can do it, I can do it too.’”
A native of Detroit, Michigan, Harris’ passion for interracial communication blossomed after living in Spain as a young child. She moved to the country with her family when her father, who was in the Navy, was stationed there.
Although Harris only lived in Spain for four-and-a-half years, the time she spent in the country inspired her to continue immersing herself in Spanish and Latinx culture when she and her family moved back to the United States. For instance, she took Spanish from elementary school all the way through college to stay connected to her first language.
In 2009, when Harris was a professor at the University of Georgia, she developed an annual summer study abroad program, entitled “International Perspectives on Interracial Communication in Costa Rica.” She served as the program director and professor, teaching students about race and culture in the country.
Through the program, Harris encouraged students to interact with the local residents to understand how different Latinx groups, such as European, African, or Indigenous Costa Ricans, were treated differently in the country. Students also learned how race, ethnicity and culture impacted ecotourism and sustainability in Costa Rica.
Harris often incorporates the experiences she and her students had in Costa Rica into her teaching on interracial communication and multiculturalism. Her main goal as a professor is to motivate undergraduate and graduate students to transform the theoretical knowledge they acquire in the classroom into real-world practices.
“It’s important for us to be prepared to have interracial interactions because we are living in a diverse society,” Harris said. “I believe that if we know how to communicate with each other, then we can break down [the walls of the racial divide].”
Harris’ goal is the same for academics and professionals who engage in her research, which primarily focuses on race, media representations and social justice. She said she hopes her research projects inspire scholars across all disciplines to incorporate the topics discussed in her work into their curriculum.
Harris also said she would like her work to motivate white academics to value their colleagues from historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups and acknowledge the experiences these scholars vocalize having at their organizations. Additionally, Harris hopes her research projects inspire professionals to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment.
“When [people from historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups tell their white colleagues] that they feel like they experienced racism, the colleagues should do something about it because it’s happening,” Harris said. “Racial microaggressions are not a myth.”
Beyond academia, Harris has received high accolades for her impactful mentorship. The Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender (OSCLG) selected her as its 2022 Feminist Teacher-Mentor Awardee for inspiring students and colleagues by modeling feminist ideals of caring, community power-sharing and commitment, while also earning individual and collaborative records of achievement.
“Mentoring is very important to me because it’s critical to an individual’s personal and professional development,” Harris said.
Harris also takes her mentorship beyond higher education. In 2022, she and Manship School Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Meghan Sanders, Ph.D., launched Sisters with a Purpose (SWAP), an annual, virtual writing workshop program for women scholars from historically underrepresented groups around the world who come together to connect and grow as storytellers.
The application process for the retreat is highly selective to engender robust discussions among the small group of participants. During the inaugural, weeklong workshop, Harris, Sanders and Manship School postdoctoral researcher Sherella Cupid, Ph.D., each hosted a “SWAP Talk,” where they conducted informal presentations and facilitated discussions. The participants also had writing sessions to work on their research projects.
Harris said, as a Black female scholar, she is proud of the racial and gender barriers she overcame as an educator, researcher and mentor. The prestigious awards she has earned for her distinguished work encourage her to continue fulfilling these roles.
Harris has various individual and collaborative research projects, including books, essays and studies, in process whose goal is to advance the discourse surrounding the importance of different races forming long-lasting and vigorous relationships with each other in academia and the greater society. This is the spirit of her forthcoming solo-authored book “Dismantling Racism, One Relationship at a Time.” Her hope is that everyone will recognize the value of communication in addressing systemic oppression and commit to developing their communication skills to talk through our differences and have true, authentic interracial relationships.
“We need to have knowledge about racism’s existence in order to identify it, and then dismantle it,” Harris said. “We can only dismantle it through interracial communication.”
Written by Jasmine Edmonson
Manship School Blog 