Bryant Keith Alexander, Ph.D. is dean of the LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts. He is Professor of Communication, Performance and Cultural Studies, Affiliate Faculty of Educational Leadership for Social Justice, Doctoral Program at LMU’s School of Education, and Affiliate/Adjunct Faculty in the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Alexander is an active scholar with a distinguished record of teaching, service, and professional activity.
His nearly 200 scholarly publications appear in leading journals, edited volumes, and major handbooks that evidence the broad interdisciplinary and intellectual curiosity of his engagement including: “The Handbook of Qualitative Inquiry 4th , 5th, and 6th editions, “The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication,” “The Handbook of Autoethnography, 1st edition” “The Blackwell Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication,” “The Handbook of Communication and Instruction,” “The Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies,” “The Handbook of Qualitative Research,” “The Handbook of Performance Studies,” “Men and Masculinities: Critical Concepts in Sociology,” “The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture,” along with the forthcoming “Advancing Culturally Responsive Research and Researchers: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods” (Routledge).
Alexander has seven books. He is co-editor of “Performance Theories in Education: Power, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Identity” (Erlbaum, 2005); author of “Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer Identity” (Alta Mira, 2006), author of “The Performative Sustainability of Race: Reflections on Black Culture and the Politics of Identity” (Peter Lang, 2012), co-editor of the “Routledge Handbook of Gender and Communication” (2021), co-author “Still Hanging: Using Performance Texts to Deconstruct Racism” (Brill | Sense, 2021), co-author of “Collaborative Spirit-Writing and Performance in Everyday Black Lives” (Routledge, 2021), and “Intergenerational Dialogues of a Black Quartet: Qualitative Inquiries on Race, Gender, Sexualities, and Culture” (Routledge, 2022).
His scholarship and teaching have been recognized with a range of national and regional awards including the Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award; the Ethnography Division Legacy Award; the Randy Majors Award for GLBTQ Scholarship; The H.L. “Bud” Goodall, Jr. and Nick Trujillo “It’s a Way of Life” Award in Narrative Ethnography from the National Communication Association; the Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award, the Master Teaching Award from the Western States Communication Association, the 2021 Black Community Impact Award at Loyola Marymount University, the 2021 National Communication Association Performance Studies Division Distinguished Service Award, and the 2021 Shawn Long Administrator of the Year Award from the Association for Communication Administration.
Alexander has an earned Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from what is now the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. At LMU he holds tenure in the Department of Communication Studies and proudly serves as Affiliate Faculty in the Educational Leadership for Social Justice Doctoral Program in LMU’s School of Education.
Before arriving at LMU, Alexander was a professor of Communication Studies and Affiliate Faculty of Theatre Arts and Dance at California State University Los Angeles, where he also served as the director of Graduate Teaching Associates in the Department of Communication Studies, chair of the Department of Liberal Studies, associate dean, and interim dean of the College of Arts and Letters — a college that included many of the current disciplines in CFA as well as English, Liberal Studies, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Television, Film and Media Studies, with master's and MFA degrees in film and art, along with course offerings, minor programs, and certificates in Journalism, Korean, Linguistics, Teaching Critical Thinking, as well as Women, Genders and Sexualities.
Alexander has evidenced the ability to work successfully in diverse academic institutions including the California State University Los Angeles, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Moorhead State University, MN and Texas A&M University-College Station, TX which informs his leadership at LMU.
Alexander’s administrative, teaching, and scholarly life celebrates integrative and interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge, and a demonstrated commitment to high-quality undergraduate and graduate programs. He has commitments in promoting leadership in/as collaboration and consensus building as well as an acknowledgment of administration, teaching, and scholarship as informing practices of active academic professionalism. He promotes and embodies the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of higher education and civic life.