VERA WALKER HAWKINS, Ph.D., is an associate professor of journalism at Texas Southern University.
Appointed interim chair of the Journalism Department in 2006, Dr. Hawkins served in this capacity until September 2010. Dr. Hawkins served as chair/interim director of TSU’s Quality Enhancement Plan Committee and was intricately involved in the university’s preparation for its SACS Accreditation Reaffirmation from 2008 – 2011.
She received her doctorate degree in journalism from the University of Texas-Austin. Before her most recent assignment at TSU, Dr. Hawkins was an American Educational Research Association Postdoctoral Fellow at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While in Boston, she collaborated on culturally relevant multimedia projects with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, The Sesame Workshop, WGBH Television, and the Cambridge Public Schools. Dr. Hawkins’ areas of interest include comparative media studies, children’s programming, journalism education and multimedia technology.
Dr. Hawkins published her first book in January 2010, New Media Storytelling as Pedagogy for African American Children with Lambert Publishing Company. The book is available online at Amazon and MoreBooks