School of Communication Welcomes Dr. Godfried Asante

Asante, a critical intercultural communication scholar, joins SDSU as an Assistant Professor

by PSFA Stories Team

June 3, 2020

The SDSU School of Communication is excited to welcome Assistant Professor of Communication, Difference, and Disparities, Dr. Godfried Asante. A critical intercultural communication scholar, Dr. Asante examines how social hierarchies around gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, sex/body, nation, and ability intersect to produce social inequalities and social exclusions. He employs interdisciplinary approaches to understand how humans’ rights violations, social injustices, and health disparities are normalized. He hopes to use his research to explore culturally specific/contextually relevant notions of empowerment, emancipation, social justice, fairness, and equity that can buttress notions of “universal human rights” as an effective avenue for intercultural relations and engaged praxis.

Dr. Asante was drawn to SDSU not only by the fantastic weather in San Diego, but the distinguished faculty members who engage in word-renowned research. He was particularly attracted to the School of Communication’s well-established legacy of academic excellence and the teacher-scholar model at SDSU. Within the university, Asante is heartened by the efforts San Diego State makes to foster community and mentoring relationships amongst its students and faculty. Moreover, SDSU’s commitment to educating minoritized student populations speaks to his commitments and reflects his own experiences as an international scholar.

As an educator, Dr. Asante believes he has a responsibility to prepare future and current students for the complex roles they will fulfill as parents, community leaders, politicians, and more. He views the classroom as an extension of the “real world” and not outside of it. Based on this belief, he engages his students in critical dialogues where they respectfully challenge each other’s ideas while thinking through local and global issues. An emphasis on critical dialogue is driven by his desire for community-engaged learning, where students critically examine social issues by working with community members. In this way, students see the learning process as not only confined to the classroom but as a collaborative process with their communities. Dr. Asante believes that SDSU stands to make significant contributions to changing this country’s future leaders and is excited to be a part of that legacy.

The content within this article has been edited by Lizbeth Persons.

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