Sam Mwangi, Ph.D.

Professor, Director of the Huck Boyd Center for Community Journalism

scmwangi@ksu.edu
Campus office: 209 Nichols Hall

Sam C. Mwangi is a professor in the A.Q. Miller School of Media and Communication. He also serves as the Director of the Huck Boyd Center for Community Journalism. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in News and Feature Writing, Reporting Across Platforms, Global Mass Communications, International Communication, and Communication Theories and Engagement. He is passionate about teaching and was awarded the K-State College of Arts and Science’s William L. Stamey Teaching Award in 2010.

He has broad research interests in media and civic engagement, new media technologies, and development communication. His research in media and civic engagement focuses on ways of engaging citizens in the journalism process, in democracy, and in the development process through innovative models inspired by civic engagement theories and scholarship. His research on new media technologies maps emerging digital tools and trends for possible application in empowering and engaging citizens. In 2011, his research paper on using new media technologies for civic engagement was awarded the top faculty research paper award in the Communications Technologies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. In 2007-2008, he successfully mentored five journalism students in creating new digital tools for media and civic engagement through a Knight Foundation grant. In 2009, he again successfully mentored a journalism student in a joint research project under K-State’s Developing Scholars Program that earned the student the Exemplary Scholar Award. Born and raised in Kenya, he has a special research interest in exploring ways that communication can be used in the development process of Third World countries. His individual and joint research proposals have to date attracted a total of $260,000 in funding.

Through a grant from the College of Distance Education, he developed the Journalism school’s first online version of the News and Feature Writing class, which is now offered every summer.

Prior to coming to Kansas State University, he taught at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. He has over ten years of professional experience working as a print journalist in Kenya and in the U.S.A. He has lived in Africa, the Caribbean, and in the USA and considers himself a global citizen.