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Dr. Tina Maria Harris
Tina graduated from UGA in 1990 and 1992 with a Bachelor's and Master's degree in the Dept.
of Speech Communication. In May 1995, she graduated from the University of Kentucky with a
Doctorate in Speech Communication. After graduation, she accepted a tenure-track position on
the faculty at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. Having served on faculty
there for three years, she accepted an offer from the University of Georgia as an assistant
professor in the Dept. of Speech Communication. She began her career as a faculty member here
in the fall of 1998 as mass lecturer (enrollment of 200 students) for the department's Business
and Professional Communication course. Professor Harris was promoted with tenure to Associate
Professor at the University of Georgia in the spring of 2004.
Tina is a communication scholar who has special research interests in the areas of interracial
communication, pedagogy, and race and ethnic disparities in health communication. She has
co-authored a textbook with African American communication scholar Mark P. Orbe of Western
Michigan University, which is titled /Interracial Communication: Theory to Practice (2007/)
and currently in its second edition with Sage Publications. At the time of its initial release
in 2001, this was the first textbook to be written on the topic since 1974. Tina has been honored
by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents (BOR) with its 2005 Award for the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning for her research. The research for which she is being recognized explores
race as a socially constructed phenomenon that impacts communicative experiences. She explores
individual understandings of race and its influence on the ways in which people communicate
about race and non-race-related topics and issues both within and outside of the college classroom.
Tina conducts research on interracial communication, interracial dating, race relations, racial
representation and the media, and classroom instruction/interaction regarding race. This goal is
achieved by her efforts to create a sense of community and family in the classroom, which includes
interaction with students outside of class. She is very much involved with various student programs
on campus and was an active participant in the university’s Faculty-Student Enrichment Fund, where
faculty are encouraged to spend time socializing and interacting with their students. She is also
the Basic Course Director for the Speech Communication Department.
Tina's research extends to include a focus on communication phenomena that occur outside of
academic settings. She is interested in health decision making processes and how they are
affected by racialized experiences and religious frameworks. Her recent grant activity has
expanded her interest in health by exploring the intersection of genetics, race, religion/spirituality,
and health communication. She has been a co-investigator on federally funded grants from both
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) designed to
explore the ways in which the lay public communicates about genetics and race, and health. She
was recently awarded a grant through UGA Research Foundation to explore the influence of religious
frameworks on health decisions. She teaches undergraduate courses in the areas of Interracial,
Intercultural, and Interpersonal Communication, and graduate seminars in Media, Communication,
and Culture and Interracial Communication. Tina's greatest joy is to break down the wall of
separation that typically exists between professors and undergraduate students.
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