Carolyn Calloway-Thomas

Dr. Carolyn Calloway-Thomas is professor and director of Graduate Studies in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies (IU), an Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) Advisory Expert on the World Council for Intercultural and Global Competence, past president of the World Communication Association, and a 2023-24 Kovener Teaching Fellow. She is author of Empathy in the Global World: An Intercultural Perspective, coauthor of Intercultural Communication: A Text with Readings and Intercultural Communication Roots and Routes, as well as coeditor of Dr. Martin Luther Jr. and the Sermonic Power of Public Discourse.  Her coauthored book, Intercultural Communication between Chinese and North Americans, is forthcoming in 2024.  She is also coauthoring a forthcoming book titled “Speak Out,” under contract with SAGE. Her teaching and research areas are communication in Black America, empathy and conflict, intercultural communication, civic engagement, and pedagogy.  She has won many awards, including the 2022 W. George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service to Indiana University;  the National Communication Association’s (NCA) Distinguished Service Award; the National Council of Black Studies’ Paul Robeson and Zora Neale Hurston Award for Outstanding Leadership and Promotion of African Humanities; a Fulbright scholarship to Nigeria, West Africa; a Carnegie scholarship; an Indiana University Bicentennial Medal “ in recognition of distinguished and distinctive service in support of the mission of Indiana University;”  the National Communication Association’s (NCA) Robert J. Kibler Memorial  Award for outstanding work on diversity;   two   National Communication Association Presidential citation awards for  “exceptional service” to the organization and for her efforts in building partnerships between the NCA and China;  Indiana University’s “Building Bridges  Faculty Award,  which honors individuals whose intercultural and community work mirrors that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ; the Black Caucus and African American Rhetoric Division’s Distinguished Leadership  Award (NCA) for advancing the discipline and promoting social justice; and the Distinguished Alumni award from Grambling State University. 
In 2007, Oxford University in England invited Carolyn to participate in a Round Table session on Diversity and Public Policy.  She is featured as an expert in a docudrama, “True First,” regarding the life of Shirley Chisholm.  The series aired on Urban Movie Channel in February 2019. In 1998, Dr. Calloway-Thomas served as a consultant to President Clinton’s Initiative on Race and the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations One America Guide program. In addition, in 1989, she served as a decade editor of TIME magazine’s special edition on communication.