Eddah Mutua, a professor in St. Cloud State University’s Judy C. Pearson Department of Communication Studies, was awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP) that supports educational projects in Africa.
This award is one of 60 projects funded for 2024-25 academic year that pair African Diaspora scholars with higher education institutions and collaborators in Africa to work together on curriculum co-development, collaborative research, graduate training and mentoring activities.
The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, now in its tenth year, is designed to strengthen capacity at the host institutions and develop long-term, mutually-beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa, the United States and Canada. It is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration the Association of African Universities (AAU).
Dr. Mutua will travel to Kenya to collaborate with Dr. George Gathigi, who teaches at the School of Communication and Journalism at University of Nairobi. The project will focus on student teaching, mentoring and curriculum co-development in a changing communication environment in Africa.
The project aims to strengthen graduate teaching and mentoring using innovative, responsive and adaptive instructional approaches relevant in a dynamic African communication environment. The fellowship aligns with Dr. Mutua’s teaching and research interest in African cultural values and African agency as organizing principles and analytic frames for paving new directions and capacities for communication education in Africa.
The project activities aim to develop curriculum that bridges theory and praxis, incorporate emerging scholarly themes necessary in a complex global world of communication, and support strong civic and moral consciousness to use communication principles to address social, cultural, political and economic problems facing society.
This collaboration aims to improve student learning experiences driven by responsive pedagogical practices and increase capacities to become co-creators of knowledge that situates African communication research in contexts of African experiences in a global world. It will also encourage continued and productive engagement between the University of Nairobi and St. Cloud State University faculty and students.
