Dr. Cheryl D. Jenkins is Chair of the Mass Media Studies Department and Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Fine Arts at Talladega College. She previously served as an Associate Professor in the School of Media and Communication and Associate Director of the Center for Black Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Dr. Jenkins earned a doctorate in mass communication from Howard University and a master’s degree in mass communication and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi. Before entering academia, she worked as a newspaper reporter and as a media buyer for a political consulting firm on Capitol Hill. Dr. Jenkins was a 2004 Mellon Fellow for the Salzburg (Austria) Seminar session on Ethics in News Reporting and Editing and received the National Association of Black Journalists Region VII Cheryl Smith Leadership Award in 2004.
Dr. Jenkins has served as advisor to an award-winning collegiate newspaper and to student chapters of the National Association of Black Journalists. She is co-author and co-editor of the text Race and Media: Critical Perspectives, which focuses on journalistic representations of race and on the coverage of diverse communities (or lack thereof) in mainstream media. She has also presented research on popular culture issues, minority representation in the media and cultural diversity at national and regional conferences that focus on mass and human communication.
