Dr. Angela McGowan-Kirsch

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Dr. Angela McGowan-Kirsch joined the Fredonia faculty in 2015 after completing her PhD at The University of Southern Mississippi. As an Associate Professor of Communication, her teaching and scholarship focus on civic discourse and communication, political communication, leadership, media literacy, and democratic engagement. She is passionate about helping students develop the communication and leadership skills necessary for active citizenship and creating opportunities for them to put those skills into practice.

Dr. McGowan-Kirsch enjoys mentoring and advising students, collaborating with undergraduates on research projects, overseeing student internships, and designing engaging learning experiences across in-person and online environments. In her courses, students explore how communication theories and concepts shape their everyday interactions, communities, and participation in civic life. She is committed to student-centered teaching that challenges students while supporting their growth as communicators, leaders, and engaged citizens.

In addition to teaching, Dr. McGowan-Kirsch chairs Fredonia's American Democracy Project committee, where she leads campus initiatives designed to strengthen civic learning, democratic engagement, and productive discourse across differences. She also leads Fredonia's Civic Discourse General Education Competency Task Force and coordinates the Leadership Studies minor.

Dr. McGowan-Kirsch is a 2026–2027 SUNY Civil Discourse and Civic Education & Engagement Fellow and a recipient of the AASCU/Unite America 2026 Innovations in Democracy Grant. Through these efforts, she works with colleagues and students to advance civic education, civil discourse, and meaningful democratic participation on campus and beyond. She is also a 2023 recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Outside of her role at Fredonia, Dr. McGowan-Kirsch enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband, two daughters, and their dog. She loves baking sourdough bread, trying new recipes, and unwinding with an episode of The Office.

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

• SUNY Civic Discourse and Civic Education and Engagement Fellow, SUNY (2026).
• SUNY Civic Discourse and Civic Education and Engagement Fellow, SUNY (2025).
• 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

• National Communication Association
• Rhetoric Society for America
• League of Women Voters Buffalo Niagara

Contracts, Grants and Sponsored Programs

• Innovations in Democracy Grant, AASCU and Unite America (2026).

Intellectual Contributions

• "Empowering digital citizenship: Open pedagogy as a tool for countering misinformation," Edward Elgar Publishing. (2026).
• "Civic discourse in the classroom: A Faculty Guide," Open SUNY (2026).
• "Encouraging college students’ democratic engagement in an era of political polarization," Lexington Books (2025).
• "Emphasizing a student-centered process: Open pedagogy course assessments across discipline," Milne (2025).
• "Rhetoric, symbolic action and civic engagement in the public sphere," University of Minnesota Libraries (2025).
• "Assignment and grading rubric for the course Persuasion (online)," Cognella Publishing (2025).
• "Fostering Inclusive Communities Through a Student-Constructed Open Pedagogy Textbook," College Teaching (2024).
• "Gaining twenty-first century employment skills: Using LinkedIn to teach online presentation of self," Utah Journal of Communication (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

• "The Civic Campus," Public Good U: Strengthening the Case for Public Higher Education (2025).
• "Promoting civic discourse skills," SUNY General Education Conference (2026).
• "Open Pedagogy Course Assessment Emphasizing DEI," Annual meeting of the SUNY OER Summit (2024).
• "Emphasizing a Student-Centered Process: Open Pedagogy Assessments as a Means for Advancing DEI," Annual meeting of the Digital Pedagogy Institute. (2024).
• "Digital Pedagogy Tools: Media Literacy Strategies for Combating Misinformation Before, During, and After Exposures," 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.," Annual meeting of the National Communication Association (2016).
• "Rhetorical Strategies for Maintaining Bipartisanship and Civility in the U.S. Senate," Annual meeting of the National Communication Association (2016).
• "The Confederate Flag’s Continued Ideographical Power," Rhetoric Society for America Biannual Conference (2016).