FACULTY PROFILES

Jennifer Mease, Assistant Professor (Ph.D. University of North Carolina)

Email: jmease@tamu.edu
Office Phone: (979) 862-6957

Office: Bolton 017
Department of Communication
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843-4234

She regularly teaches the following courses: Comm 447: Teamwork, Collaboration and Communication

Curriculum Vitae
Jennifer Mease
(PDF Version)

Department of Communication
Texas A&M University
College Station, 77843-4234
(+1) 979-862-6957 (office)
jmease@tamu.edu

____________________________Education____________________________

________________________Academic Appointments______________________

__________________________Research Interests________________________

I take a critical cultural studies approach to organizations that questions how systems of power and
oppression are reinforced and challenged through the choices and actions of individuals. This leads me to
examine the discursive and material conditions that foster resistance or reinforcement of hegemonic
conditions. My research projects have included discourse analysis of a white identity dialogue group,
performative analysis of a racially divided school board, and involvement in Dr. Pat Parker’s participant
action research in public housing. My dissertation addresses how diversity consultants construct, negotiate and navigate the tensions they encounter in everyday practices associated with diversity programs.

Keywords: Critical organizational studies, constructions of difference, race, whiteness, social change, identity, Deleuze, Foucault.

____________________________Publications___________________________

Mease, J. (In preparation). Teaching Difference as Institutional and Making it Personal: Moving between
Personal, Interpersonal, and Institutional Constructions of Difference. In D. K. Mumby (Ed.) Organizing Difference. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mumby, D. and Mease, J. (In preparation). Organizational Discourse. In T.A. Dijk, Discourse studies: A
multidisciplinary introduction (2nd ed.): Sage Publications.

Parker, P., & Mease, J. J. (2008). Beyond the knapsack: Disrupting the production of white racial privilege in organizational practices. In L. A. Samovar, R. E. Porter & E. R. McDaniel (Eds.), Intercultural
communication: A reader (12th ed., pp. 313-324): Thomas Wadsworth Publishing.

_____________________________Honors_____________________________

Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by a Teaching Assistant (February 2009)
Awarded by the office of the Chancellor to five Teaching Assistants from across the university ($5,000)

Interdisciplinary Dissertation Fellow, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (January-May 2008)
Awarded to 15 Ph.D. students across the university in proposal stage of dissertation writing. Participated in weekly discussions of issues surrounding interdisciplinary work. ($7,500)

Future Faculty Fellow, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (August 2008)
Awarded each semester to ~30 graduate students from all departments across the university to participate in a 6 day teaching and professional development workshop. ($500)

Quintiles Corporation Scholars for Tomorrow Fellow, Culture and Society, The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill (Sept 2005 – Dec 2005)
Awarded to ~60 incoming scholars to foster interdisciplinary conversation and academic work. Participated in monthly conversations with ~10 people concerned with issues of culture and society. ($5,000)

Top Four Paper in Scholarship on Teaching and Learning Division, National Communication Association
Conference, San Antonio, TX, November, 2006

Top Debut paper in Intercultural Division, Western Communication Association Conference, Albuquerque, NM, February, 2005

Graduate Student Leadership and Service Award, Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, (Received award for 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years.)
Awarded to 2-3 graduate students from the department each year.

Independence High School Faculty Inspirational Award, 2002 – 2003 school year
Received the inaugural award (total of 5 awarded in a faculty of 125) for innovative contribution to
educational community.

Villanova Presidential Scholar, appointed to 1999 and 2000 selection and interview committees

Undergraduate honors thesis awarded Exemplary Status, bound and housed at Falvey Memorial Library

Phi Beta Kappa

Phi Kappa Phi

_______________________Conference Presentations_______________________

Mease, J. (2008). From queering organization to organization of queer theory: Moving between organizational and queer theory to develop strategies of queer world making. To be presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, San Diego, CA.

Mease, J. (2008). Organizational performance as the performance of race: An analysis of race at Durham School Board meetings. To be presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, San Diego, CA.

Mease, J. (2007). Organizing the Body without Organs, or Analyzing the curves in a straight line…: Difference and Deleuze in critical organizational scholarship. Presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL.

Mease, J. and Parker P. (2007). “You’re out of control”: The normalizing of white emotional experience as a site of control and resistance in the gendered and racialized workplace. Presented at the Gender, Work and Organization Conference, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK.

Mease, J. (2006). The trouble with talking about white: Encouraging positive white identities and interrogation of whiteness. Top Four Paper in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Division. Presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX.

Mease, J. (2006). Mapping the terrain of whiteness: A framework for approaching studies of whiteness. Presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX.

Mease, J. (2005). Duality of whiteness. Presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Boston, MA.

Mease, J. (2005). Whiteness in the workplace: How emotion can create racial bias. Presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Boston, MA.

Mease, J. (2005). Resisting race: A Foucauldian analysis of race and resistance in the Grutter vs. Bollinger Amicus Briefs. Presented at the Western States Communication Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA. (Top four debut paper in Intercultural Division)

Mease, J. (2000). Expanding white single-consciousness: A white person’s first step in fighting racism.
Presented at the Fourteenth National Conference on Undergraduate Research, Missoula, MT.

Mease, J. (2000). Racism at Villanova: What can you do? Presented at Villanova University’s Freedom
School, Villanova, PA. (Only Student Presenter)

Mease, J. (1999). What is race? Presented at the Thirteenth National Conference on Undergraduate
Research, Syracuse, NY.

________________________Invited Presentations________________________

“You’re Out of Control”: The Normalizing of Whiteness through Emotion Regulation as a Site of Control and Resistance in Gendered and Racialized Organizations with Dr. Pat Parker. Conference on White Spaces: Racialising Organisational Femininities and Masculinities, July 2009, Leeds England.

What do we mean by whiteness? Minorities in the Media Class, University of North Carolina, February and March 2007.

Whiteness: What are we talking about? Hate and Tolerance Class, University of North Carolina, November 2006.

_______________________Professional Associations_______________________

_________________________Teaching Experience________________________

• Comm 447: Teamwork, Collaboration and Communication (Fall 09)

Course Instructor:

• Comm 113: Public Speaking (Spr 07)
• Comm 120: Introduction to Interpersonal and Organizational Communication (Sum 2008, Co-Instructed with Carey Richter)
• Comm 223: Small Group Communication (Fall 05, Spr 07)
• Comm 224: Gender and Communication (Fall 07)
• Comm 318: Cultural Diversity (Fall 08)
• Comm 325: Introduction to Organizational Communication (Spr 06, Sum 06, Fall 06)
• Comm 523: Communication and Leadership (Fall 07, Co-Instructed with Sam Szczur)

Teaching Assistant:

• Comm 120: Introduction to Interpersonal and Organizational Communication (With Dr.
  Lawrence Rosenfeld, Fall 07)
• Comm 224: Gender and Communication (with Dr. Julia Wood, Spr 07)

Graduate Research Consultant for Sarah Dempsey’s Comm 629: Organizing and Nonprofits (Fall 08)

Worked with Dr. Dempsey to create semester long engaged scholarship assignment. Met with class and individual students to help them design and execute projects over the course of the semester.

Course Instructor:

• Comm 225: Public Speaking (Fall 2003, Spr/Fall 2004, Spr 2005)
• Comm 263: Elements of Intercultural Communication (Sum 2004)

Teaching Assistant

• Comm 100: Introduction to Communication (Large Lecture of 430 students with Dr. Benjamin Broome, Fall 2004; with Dr. Sarah Tracy Spr 2004)

_____________________________Service_____________________________

Department Diversity Committee August 2009-Present

Carolina Women’s Leadership Council Faculty Mentoring Award Selection Committee February 2009

Outreach Coordinator, Appointment in Executive Cabinet of Graduate and May 2008-May 2009
Professional Student Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Co-researcher/Volunteer, Striving Sisters Speak in Chapel Hill, North Carolina May 2007-Present
Assisting Dr. Pat Parker with her Participant Action Research in Chapel Hill public housing. Meet ~weekly with teenage girls and members of the community with the goal of strengthening individual
lives and communities.

Graduate Student Writing Workshop Coordinator, Department of Communication September 2007
Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Faculty Liaison, Communication Studies Graduate Student Association May 2007-May 2008
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Co-President, Communication Studies Graduate Student Association, May 2006-May 2007
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Co-Chair, Nuevo Dia Conference of Southwest organizational communication scholars January 2005
Managed executive committee tasks, coordinated committees and project tasks, planned and chaired
meetings of committee chairs, and managed budget in cooperation with faculty chair.

Co-Facilitator, Voices of Discovery Inter-group Dialogue, Arizona State University Sept 2003–April 2005
Facilitate, plan weekly agenda, and execute general curriculum for 12 hour dialogue groups that
address issues such as white identity and gender.

English Tutor, Guadalupe High School, Phoenix AZ Spring 2004

Co-VP of Programs (2002) and Member, Charlotte Chapter of American Society for 2000-2002
Training and Development

_________________________Program of Study_________________________

Communication Theory and Methods
UNC: Introduction to Research and Theory in Communication Studies with Dr. Lawrence Grossberg
ASU: Research Methods in Communication with Dr. Cheree Carlson
ASU: Theories and Models in Communication with Dr. Susan Messman
UNC: Interpretive Methods with Dr. Pat Parker
UNC: Quantitative Methods with Dr. Lawrence Rosenfeld
ASU: Qualitative Methods with Dr. Bud Goodall
UNC: Research Colloquium with Dr. Lawrence Grossberg
UNC: Close Relationships with Dr. Julia Wood
UNC: Performance and Social Control with Dr. Tony Perrucci
ASU: Foucault and Deleuze with Dr. Tom Nakayama

Race, Culture, Difference
UNC: Introduction to Cultural Studies with Dr. Lawrence Grossberg
ASU: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender with Dr. Amira de la Garza
ASU: Survey of Intercultural Communication with Dr. Judith Martin (Audit)
UNC: Queer Theory with Dr. Rich Cante and Dr. Kara Keeling
UNC: Agency and Identity with Dr. Dorothy Holland (Anthropology)
ASU: Intercultural Training with Dr. Nemi Jain

Organization
ASU: Survey of Organizational Communication with Dr. Bob McPhee
UNC: Cultural and Critical Methods in Organizational Studies with Dr. Dennis Mumby
UNC: Race and Ethnicity in Organizations with Dr. Patricia Parker
UNC: Corporate Social Responsibility with Dr. Steve May
ASU: Emotions in Organizations with Dr. Sarah Tracy
UNC: Directed Study on Organizing for Social Change with Dr. Sarah Dempsey
UNC: Development with Dr. Arturo Escobar

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