Erika L. Dakin Kirby, PhD

Erika L. Dakin Kirby, PhD

Erika L. Dakin Kirby, PhD

Professor
College of Arts and Sciences

Academic Appointments

Department

  • Communication Studies

Position

  • Professor

Secondary Appointment

  • College of Professional and Continuing Education

Teaching Activity

  • Communication and Community
  • Organizational Communication
  • Organizational Rhetoric
  • Privilege, Power and Difference
  • What Really Matters: Discernment, Conscience and Compassion
  • Work-Life Balance and Wellness

Biography

Erika L. Kirby is Professor of Communication Studies at Creighton University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in organizational communication, and she studies the everyday intersections of working and personal life, emphasizing how differing social identities (especially gender) assimilate into and collide with organizational structures. She teaches organizational communication courses and courses related to communication and social justice. She co-edited Gender Actualized: Cases in Communicatively Constructing Realities with Dr. Chad McBride and her research on work-life has been published in numerous outlets in her discipline, including two recent book chapters in the Handbook of Conflict Communication (2013) and the Handbook of Organizational Communication (2014) and two international encyclopedia entries in 2014 and 2015. Erika is Past-President of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender and a trained facilitator for the Great Plains Region of the Anti-Defamation League on issues of prejudice and discrimination. On a more personal note, she is also a Jazzercise instructor and she lives in West Omaha with Bob, her spouse of more than twenty years and their two daughters: Meredith, who is 19 and Samantha who is 17.

Publications and Presentations

Books

  • , 4, 337-367
  • , 293-308
  • , 1-43

Articles

  • , 16(1), 76-93
  • , 3rd Ed. , 351-373
  • , 175-188
  • , 2 Ed. , 377-402
  • , 26, 133-138
  • , 127-150
  • , 33, 9-28
  • , 49-72
  • , 379-386
  • , 6(1)
  • , 63-77
  • , 133-138
  • , 108-114
  • , xvii-xxiii
  • , 30, 62-63
  • , 53-66
  • , 7, 287-307
  • , 201-228
  • , 73, 474-480
  • , 327-357
  • , 16, 3-4
  • , 57, 87-105
  • , 180-189
  • , 2, 99-108
  • , 293-308
  • , 16, 3-4
  • , 143-195
  • , 16
  • , 16
  • , 57, 87-105
  • , 18, 435-478
  • , 83-106
  • , 18, 435-478
  • , 18, 124-127
  • , 18, 82-86
  • , 16
  • , 55, 48-67
  • , 55, 48-67
  • , 18, 82-86
  • , 18, 124-127
  • , 27, 1-43
  • , 30, 50-77
  • , 30, 50-77

Editing and Reviews

  • , 30, 62-63

Presentations

Research and Scholarship

Research and Scholarship Interests

  • Organizational Communication Gendered Structures in Personal and Professional Life Work-Life Balance and Wellness

Current Research Projects

  • Several current research projects surround work-life issues, including how home party consultants "balance" work and life and how work-life "balance" itself is a classist construct.

Grant Funding Received

  • The Dr. George F. Haddix President’s Research Fund (2013—not awarded). Applied for a $15,000 team grant to study “The Constructions of ‘Adults’ in Adult Higher Education.”

Awards and Honors

  • 2015 Charles Woolbert Award, National Communication Association, 2016
  • Facilitated Strategic Planning Retreat for the Mildred D. Brown Memorial Study Center (2012)., 2012
  • Provided assessment to HDR and the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce on perceptions of the South Omaha Development Project with students in COM 463 (2011). , 2011
  • Book of the Year Award, Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) , 2010
  • Provided assessment to the Committee on the Status of Women on perceptions of the committee (collected through surveys) with students in COM 463 (2010). , 2010
  • Provided assessment to well-e bands on perceptions of the product (collected through focus groups and interviews) with students in COM 463 (2010). , 2010