Email: dpen (at symbol) ku.edu
Dr. Dorthy Lee Pennington, a graduate of Rust College and the University of Kansas, is an associate professor of African and African-American Studies, and Communication Studies. She is a specialist on intercultural communication and African-American culture, and has taught courses on the Rhetoric of African Americans, the Black Woman, Black Male and Female Communications, among others. She has had teaching experiences at Texas Tech University and at the Department of Defense where she taught courses on Race Relations and Equal Opportunity Management.
Dr. Pennington is the author or co-author of Crossing Difference. Interracial Communication; African-American Women Quitting the Workplace; and Interracial Communication: Case Studies and Critical Incidents. She has published in the Journal of Afro-American Issues; The Speech Communication Teacher; Handbook of Intercultural Communication; Contemporary Black Thought; American Orators of the Twentieth Century; Intercultural Communication: A Reader; Seeing Female: Social Roles and Personal Lives; African-American Communications: An Anthology; Voices of Multicultural America; Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the 21st Century: A Communication Perspective; Understanding African-American Rhetoric; The African Presence in America; Die Rolle der Zivilgesellschaft und der Religion bei der Demokratisierung Afrikas; and Promoting the Success of Students of Color in Communication Departments.
Dr. Pennington frequently performs the character Sojourner Truth, in the "History Alive!" program of the Kansas Humanities Council, and has received grants from that Council and from the Lawrence Sesquicentennial Commission. Dr. Pennington is the recipient of many awards: the Distinguished Teaching Award (National Communication Association); Teaching Excellence Award (University of Kansas Center for Teaching Excellence); the Steeples Service to Kansas Award (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) and has been inducted into the KU Women's Hall of Frames. Dr. Pennington is a member of the Speech Communication Association, Central States Communication Association, International Communication Association, National Communication Association, Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, the National Association of African-American Studies, and Society for Intercultural Education.
