Deion Hawkins

Deion S. Hawkins is a dedicated community-engaged scholar and Assistant Professor of Argumentation & Advocacy in the Department of Communication Studies. With a PhD in health communication, Deion has developed a distinctive, equitable research program at the crossroads of race, power, communication, and culture, driven by a commitment to challenging systemic injustices. Through critical qualitative and rhetorical methods, his research foregrounds the narratives of Black Americans at the intersection of identities like sexuality and disability—voices that are often overlooked or structurally silenced in research.

Dr. Hawkins's research on race, HIV, and police brutality has substantially impacted his field, with over a dozen peer-reviewed articles and competitively selected book chapters to his credit. His research, archived in the NIH's National Library of Medicine, has been published in leading journals such as Health Communication, Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, American Behavioral Scientist, and Social Media + Society. His book chapters are featured in Queer Intercultural Communication and The Palgrave Handbook of Disability and Communication. His work has garnered considerable recognition from the National Communication Association, including top paper awards in family communication and the prestigious Article of the Year (2024) honor from the African American Communication and Culture division. Additionally, his writing has appeared in prominent outlets like Salon, Yahoo!, HowStuffWorks, Fortune, and PBS. Dr. Hawkins's collaboration with the Counter Narrative Project, a nonprofit dedicated to policy and narrative change for Black queer men, earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Best Blog for The Reckoning.

As a first-generation college graduate who has transitioned into academia, Dr. Hawkins is committed to using higher education as a powerful tool for self-discovery and critical thinking.

His "warm demander" approach emphasizes gracious accountability and embraces failure as vital to learning. This equips students with the skills for effective advocacy and rigorous debate, driving them to reach their full potential. This dedication to transformative education was recognized when he received Emerson's Outstanding Teaching Award in Spring 2022.

Beyond his classroom duties, Dr. Hawkins excels as an impactful speech and debate (forensics) coach. He stands out as one of the few coaches in the country to have secured multiple national championships in both debate (IPDA 2013, IPDA 2019) and speech (Duo-AFA 2017, Duo-PKD 2019) within his first decade of coaching. His extraordinary achievements, including recently coaching students to 2nd and 6th place in the world, earned him the Outstanding New Forensics Educator Award in 2019—a prestigious recognition from the nation's oldest speech and debate organization.

Driven by a profound commitment to advancing equity beyond academia, Deion leverages his academic influence to effect real-world change. He actively engages with 826 Boston and serves on the Board of Directors for Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, where his lived experience and expertise in health equity make a significant impact. In his previous role as Coalition Manager for HIV Racial Justice Now!, he led a group of BIPOC activists in advancing racial justice in the fight against HIV in the U.S. His steadfast dedication to community service has earned him several accolades, including the 826 National Network's Consensus & Community Builder Award (July 2024), the Boston Congress of Public Health's 40 under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award (July 2023), and George Mason University's Alumni Queer Excellence Award (April 2024). Beyond his community work, Dr. Hawkins also plays an essential role in shaping academic discourse, regularly reviewing for respected journals such as Health Communication, Journal of Black Studies, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. Lastly, Dr. Hawkins is also a leading diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant, serving high-profile clients such as Shark Ninja, UNAIDS, and the Massachusetts Department of Health.

Highlights

Selected Campus Service

• Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (2022–2024)
• Student Experience Representative to Board of Trustees (2022–2024)
• Center for Teaching and Learning (CITL) Faculty Ambassador (2021–2023)
• Learning, Equity, and Assessment Program (LEAP) faculty fellow (2019–2021)

Campus Features

• Hawkins Honored for Teaching Excellence
• Emerson Debaters Take Top International Honors in Tokyo
• Speech & Debate Team Snags International Success in Dublin
• No Experience Necessary: Forensics Team Wins National Title

Courses taught:

• CC100: Fundamentals of Speech Communication
• CC211: Introduction to Health Communication
• CC263: Argumentation and Advocacy
• CC344: Protest & Social Movements