Ph.D. Communication, University of Washington
M.A. Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
B.A. English and Women’s Studies, St. Olaf College

• BIS 490 Asian American Media in the Pacific Northwest (Advanced Seminar)
• BIS 499 Portfolio Capstone
• BIS 480 International Study Abroad (India)
• BISMCS 472 Advanced Media Production Workshop: Multimedia Storytelling in Student Media
• BISMCS 402 Community Media Practice (Husky Herald; Student News)
• BISMCS 343 Media Production Workshop: Nonfiction Media Writing
• BISMCS 333 Media and Communication Studies Core
• BIS 331 Journalism and Media History
• BIS 313 Issues in Media Studies: Critical Issues in U.S. Journalism History
• BIS 300: Interdisciplinary Inquiry
• BCORE 207 Individuals and Society: Credibility, Journalism, Media
• BIS 204 Introduction to Journalism (now BISMCS 279 Journalism Writing)
• BIS 179 Introduction to Journalism
• BCORE 104/110 Time Traveling Through Experiential Learning, Art and the Environment
• BCORE 104/110 Absences in Archives
• BCUSP 118 Critical and Creative Inquiry: Journalistic Interviewing

My teaching in our Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences school is shaped by my years as a journalist and historian. I encourage students to ask questions, seek evidence, explore complexity, engage with communities, evaluate and create media, and contribute to the world as responsible citizens. Communication, media, and journalism studies bring together different disciplines, histories, and training. All three fields require that students stretch toward communities that are unfamiliar, connect with origin communities that are familiar, apply critical thinking and analysis to social problems, evaluate and create communication, and learn from practice. Students in my classrooms move reflexively between the contextual and theoretical questions of why and the more pragmatic and methodological questions of how. Students do projects that encourage them to get out of the classroom and engage in our communities. I use a multiple-method approach in the classroom to address the diversity of student learning. This includes group work, multi-media projects, tiered writing, peer reviews, student leadership, and active discussions. I also work closely with students through independent research and mentor them in my classrooms as peer facilitators. These teaching strategies work together to help students become empowered learners ready to critically engage with the world around them.

Questions about journalism practices drive my scholarship. These practices are found in news organizations, within marginalized communities, during different periods of history, and in varied formats of media. My research and teaching are at the intersection of journalism history, ethnic/community media, archives, and activist movements. My scholarship on teaching and learning has examined student and practitioner experience with reciprocity, diversity, and civic engagement. My past work for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication History Division encouraged and promoted pedagogies of diversity, collaboration, community, and justice. My media history scholarship examines the historical and political relationship between social movements and grassroots U.S. newspapers. I ask how (and why) these newspapers began, operated, and changed over time. I ask how (and why) workers operated as journalists and balanced loyalties. The answers add complexity to the role of media in democracy and the role of community and activism in journalism. My media representation scholarship has explored how newspaper publication’s words, visuals, and graphics framed responsibility. My media representation scholarship has explored how published words, visuals, and graphics framed responsibility. My publications appear in American Journalism, Columbia Journalism Review, Journalism, Journalism History, Newspaper Research Journal, and Visual Communication Quarterly. My most recent publication is a chapter in an award-winning book, Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America.

Selected Service

• University of Washington Bothell Writing Council: Appointed 2023–present
• Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Teaching Committee: Elected 2020–2023
• University of Washington (Tri-Campus) Faculty Council on Teaching and Learning (FCTL): Appointed 2019–2022
• University of Washington Bothell Campus Council on Assessment and Learning (CCAL): Elected 2019–2021

Selected Publications

• Kristin L. Gustafson, “Death of Democracy: North Carolina,” in Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America, edited by Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield, 187–224. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019. DOI: 10.5622/illinois/9780252044106.003.0008
• Nicholas Hirshon, Lori Amber Roessner, and Kristin L. Gustafson, “Reporting Today, With Yesterday’s Context,” Columbia Journalism Review, 21 September 2020
• Kristin L. Gustafson and Linda Jean Kenix, “Visually Framing Press Freedom and Responsibility of a Massacre: Photographic and Graphic Images in Charlie Hebdo‘s Newspaper Front Pages Around the World,” Visual Communication Quarterly 23, No. 3 (Winter 2016): 147–160. DOI: 10.1080/15551393.2016.1190623
• Kristin L. Gustafson, “Translation, Technology, and the Digital Archive: Preserving a Historic Japanese-Language Newspaper,” American Journalism 31, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 4–25. DOI:10.1080/08821127.2014.875349
• Kristin L. Gustafson, “Ethnic Newspaper Producers Face Archiving Challenges,” Newspaper Research Journal 36, no. 3, special issue Capturing and Preserving the First Draft of History in the Digital Environment, (Summer 2015): 314–327. DOI: 10.1177/0739532915600744
• Andrea Hickerson and Kristin L. Gustafson, “Revisiting the Immigrant Press,” Journalism 17, 8 (OnlineFirst 28 July 2014, print 2016): 943–960. DOI: 10.1177/1464884914542742
• Kristin L. Gustafson and Fahed Al Sumait. “Photo Conversations About Climate: Engaging Teachers and Policymakers Through Photography and Narrative,” Sightline Institute (2009). http://www.sightline.org/research_item/conversations-about-climate/
• Kristin L. Gustafson, “Constructions of Responsibility for Three 1920 Lynchings in Minnesota Newspapers: Marginalization of People, Groups, and Ideas,” Journalism History 34, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 42–53.

Selected Awards

• Jinx Broussard Award for Excellence in Teaching Media History for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference, 2021
• Nominated for UW Bothell Distinguished Teaching Award, 2020
• Top-place poster at the UW Teaching & Learning Symposium, Scholarly Teaching Practice and Features, Seattle, WA (first author with Dr. Amy Lambert), 2019
• Honorable mention for the UW Bothell Chancellor’s Distinguished Undergraduate Research and Creative Practice Mentor Award, 2017
• Second-place, top-faculty paper award for the AEJMC Visual Communication Division, San Francisco, CA (first author with Dr. Linda Jean Kenix), 2015
• Adviser of the year for the UW Bothell Husky Herald newspaper, 2016 and 2011
• Gene Burd Urban Journalism (Dissertation) Research Prize for the International Communication Association, Boston, MA, 2011
• Honorable mention for the American Journalism Historian Association Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation award, Kansas City, MO, 2011
• Third-ranked paper for the International Communication Association Ethnicity and Race Division, Dresden, Germany, 2006
• Top scholar award for the UW Graduate School Fund for Excellence and Innovation, Seattle, WA, 2005

Teaching Strategies

• Asynchronous learning providing students a balance of structure and flexibility
• Backward course design aligning learning outcomes with learning goals
• Discussion forums engaging students through thoughtful prompts and structured responses with one another
• Original work using historical research, journalism tools, writing skills, interviewing, archival strategies, community knowledge, and media techniques
• Universal design offering multiple ways for students to engage and express
• Scaffolded projects breaking bigger tasks into manageable parts
• Accessible materials using captioning, alternative text, and readings
• Engaged activities getting students into their communities to enhance meaning and relevance for their learning