Dr. Angela McGowan-Kirsch

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Dr. McGowan-Kirsch joined the Fredonia faculty in 2015 after completing her PhD at The University of Southern Mississippi. As an associate professor of communication, she is passionate about teaching students the critical skills of active citizenship and offering occasions for students to practice those skills. She enjoys mentoring and advising students, collaborating with undergraduates on their research projects, overseeing student internships, and designing in-person, synchronous, and asynchronous online courses. Dr. McGowan-Kirsch remains committed to high standards, individual learning, and helping students achieve their full potential. In her courses, students gain skills to recognize how communication theories and concepts inform their daily interactions. In addition to teaching, she chairs Fredonia's American Democracy Project committee. ADP educates students to engage in civic issues through participatory democracy. She serves as the coordinator of the Leadership Studies minor. In this role, she works with faculty and staff to give students an intensive study of leadership concepts and ideas.

Office Hours

• MWF 1:00-2:00

Teaching Interests

Communication and Leadership
Communication Theory
Mass Media and Society
Persuasion
Political Communication
Presidential Campaign Communication
Rhetoric and Criticism

Research Interests

Rhetoric
Political communication
College students' democratic engagement
OER and open pedagogy 
Women in politics

Awards and Honors

• The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, SUNY Chancellor (2023).
• SUNY Fredonia FREDHeros, The State University of New York (2020).
• Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador for Fredonia, State University of New York (2019).

License/Certification

• SUNY Center for Professional Development Grants and Proposal Certificate Program
• Graduate Training and Development Certificate
• Graduate Rhetorical Leadership Certificate
• Lumen Circles Fellowship
• Build Your Online Class

Professional Membership

• League of Women Voters Buffalo Niagara
• Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication
• Rhetoric Society for America
• National Communication Association

Intellectual Contributions

• "Encouraging college students’ democratic engagement in an era of political polarization," Lexington Books (2025).
• "Rhetoric, symbolic action and civic engagement in the public sphere," University of Minnesota Libraries (2025).
• "Emphasizing a student-centered process: Open pedagogy course assessments across discipline," Milne (2025).
• "Fostering Inclusive Communities Through a Student-Constructed Open Pedagogy Textbook," College Teaching (2024).
• "Educating emerging citizens: Media literacy as a tool for combating the spread of image-based misinformation," Communication Teacher (2023).
• "Harnessing the power of three online learning tools: Best practices for student engagement in distance learning courses," COVID and Higher Education: Teaching and Learning (2022).
• "Implementing campus-level programming: Pathways to online civic engagement," Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2022).
• "Encouraging college student democratic engagement through a collaborative voter mobilization project," Journal of Communication Pedagogy (2021).
• "Women in the 113th Senate cultivating the appearance of bipartisanship," Atlantic Journal of Communication (2021).
• "Progressing Through Tuckman’s Phases in a Virtual College Classroom: Using Online Tools to Support Student Group Development," Post-pandemic pedagogy: Predicting the change to come (2021).
• "Advocating a Preferred Legislative Style while Constituting a Bipartisan Collective Identity: Women Senators’ Strategic Use of Constitutive and Polarizing Rhetoric," Atlantic Journal of Communication (2019).
• "Using Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire to teach students about (in)civility and the Elaboration Likelihood Model," Communication in the classroom: A collection of G.I.F.T.S. (2017).
• "Discovering Civil Discourse: Using the Online Public Sphere for Authentic Assessment," Communication Teacher (2014).

Presentations

• "Open Pedagogy Course Assessment Emphasizing DEI" (2024).
• "Emphasizing a Student-Centered Process: Open Pedagogy Assessments as a Means for Advancing DEI," 2024 annual meeting of the Digital Pedagogy Institute. (2024).
• "Digital Pedagogy Tools: Media Literacy Strategies for Combating Misinformation Before, During, and After Exposures," 2024 annual meeting of the SUNY Digital Learning Conference. (2024).
• "Transforming Learning Through Implementation of Open Pedagogy: Two Case Studies," SUNY OER Summit (2023).
• "Facilitating Peer and Instructor Interaction While Promoting Student Engagement," Conference on Instruction & Technology (2021).
• "Advancing the Traditional Conceptualization of Feminine Style: A New Theory of Civility.," National Communication Association (2016).
• "Rhetorical Strategies for Maintaining Bipartisanship and Civility in the U.S. Senate," National Communication Association (2016).
• "The Confederate Flag’s Continued Ideographical Power," Rhetoric Society for America Biannual Conference (2016).