Early in her life, Lisa Hanasono knew she wanted to teach. After starting college and discovering academia, she followed that path to her current position as an Associate Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Bowling Green State University. She received her PhD at the Lamb School in 2011.
Could you walk me along your career path?
I always knew I wanted to teach. That was something that was always a passion of mine, and when I got to college, I had an epiphany where I realized I could teach college students. That sweetened the deal. There’s a certain amount of depth and freedom, autonomy, and type of thought that can happen at this level that was kind of exciting. I was at Miami University in Ohio majoring in communication studies and psychology. The next logical step if you want to be a professor was to earn your master’s and PhD. I earned my masters at Miami of Ohio and was very fortunate to have great mentors, professors, and peers. We really kind of developed a community, and I learned so much more about the art of teaching and also how to conduct research.
During my master’s program, I started to search around for potential PhD programs. I had a lot of great opportunities to go different places, but as soon as I got the acceptance letter from Purdue, I knew that was where I wanted to go and that was where I wanted home to be. I wanted to work with certain professors and Purdue has such an outstanding reputation in communication as well as in so many areas of expertise. I quickly accepted and haven’t regretted that decision one bit. Being at Purdue and being part of the communication family has been lifechanging for the better. I was very fortunate to work with Dr. Melanie Morgan as part of her core team and training graduate students and newer teachers how to be instructor of record for COM 114. It was a joy to work with Dr. Melanie Morgan, she really took me under her wing and taught me how to engage in pedagogical development, think about inclusive pedagogy, thinking about training and professional development. It was an absolute incredible experience for me. While I was there, not only did I become a stronger researcher and a stronger teacher, I think I grew as a person because of the environment Purdue richly affords. I also was involved in the development of the new Asian American Studies program which is not so new anymore. But that was a really exciting aspect to be a part of program development, teaching new courses and the like.
I knew I wanted to be a professor and continued that track. I was very fortunate, even though we were in the throes of the recession at the time, to be on the job market and to land a tenure track position. I jumped on the tenure track here at Bowling Green State University in the department of communication at the time and was very fortunate to find a place that really became my new home. I’ve navigated the assistant professor position, was promoted and also granted tenure here, and I’m quite grateful and happy with that path.
What are your research interests? How have these panned out in your career?
My research broadly focuses on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a communications scholar, especially coming from the areas of interpersonal and intercultural communication and also gender and race, I often focus on how people communicate their prejudice and how we express social biases. I also examine how we communicate to shatter different forms of stigma. And then finally, and since I’m earning tenure this has become a major focal point of my work which is how we can respond and prevent discrimination. More broadly we can look at aspects of bystander intervention, of allyship, I’ve been working with students on how we can engage in social media activism to change people’s attitudes and to stop discrimination. It’s been a really gratifying applied program of research.
More recently I’ve been involved in an NSF ADVANCE Adaptation Grant. I’m a co-PI of a nearly $1 million-dollar grant and we are focusing on making universities, so institutions of higher ed more inclusive and fighting for gender equity. We’ve been doing that especially focusing on how we can cultivate communities that engage in allyship and inclusive leadership that can hopefully be more conducive in supporting and advancing the careers of faculty who are in STEM and social behavior sciences. Especially because it’s funded by the NSF, we are particularly keen in target audiences of faculty in STEM, especially women in STEM, non-binary individuals in STEM, faculty of color in STEM, as well as those in social behavior sciences.
If you had unlimited funding and time, what would you research?
One of the areas I have been most passionate about is really faculty development in diversity. That’s how that connects me back to the National Center for Faculty Development in Diversity, which I have been so fortunate to serve as a coach for their faculty success program as well as a workshop facilitator at universities and campuses around the nation. I believe there is a need to support faculty as well as all constituents for university life. For me, that’s one of the areas of passion is mentoring and supporting colleagues, those who are newer or those who have been career who are looking for advancement.
That said if I had unlimited money, I would support others to do great work in areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I know that I cannot do it all and I don’t purport to be the only doing this kind of work. We have to collaborate together.
What was your time like at Purdue?
I worked as a staff member/graduate assistant for Purdue’s Graduate Student Professional Development Office. It was really interesting and important in terms of connecting my passion for professional development in academic context. While I was there I got to help develop/facilitate workshops on academic interviewing, presenting at conferences, so I got to not only develop the curriculum for certain workshops that focus on academic professionalism and professional development, but I also got to facilitate that and I found that work to be particularly gratifying partly because it allowed me to render visible some of the hidden curriculum, the skills and knowledge that isn’t always equitably distributed. People assume that we learn how to publish and we learn how to get grants formally in our programs of study, but there’s other things that weren’t necessarily formally taught, at least not across the board across different departments, institutions, etc. Things like how to strategically network at conferences, or how to promote your social brand on social media for professional purposes, or how to engage in certain forms of conflict management.
What advice do you have for Lamb School students?
It takes a village; it is so important to recognize that we are not alone and it is so important to be part of community. I think one of the aspects that I am forever grateful for especially as it relates to my experience at Purdue was I felt truly part of a broader village. It’s an intellectual community, a community of support, and a community of care that really wanted both me and all of the folks at our village, so to speak, to succeed.
When you find that, when you are part of a community that is inclusive, that is diverse, and that really works together, it is incredibly powerful. I would encourage if people are looking to go to grad school, are looking to be part of an academic community, if they are looking to become a professor or wherever their journey or career trajectory may take them, it is important to recognize it takes a village and to choose your villages carefully.