Dr. Gordon Alley-Young

Biography

Dr. Gordon Alley-Young is a Professor of Speech Communication and the Dean of Communications at Kingsborough Community College – City University of New York. Before joining academia he worked as a journalist and a media and community relations liaison in his native country of Canada. He possesses an undergraduate degree in Communication from Cape Breton University (Nova Scotia, Canada), two Master’s degrees, one in Communication and one in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Women’s Studies, from the University of Maine (Orono, Maine, USA), and a PhD in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, Illinois, USA). His research, including works published in Spanish, Turkish, and English, focuses on qualitative media analyses of topics including whiteness, LGBTQAI+ identity, MENA feminism, popular education films, journalistic hoaxes, terrorism and social media, and historical drama. He has presented over forty research papers at local, state, regional, national, and international conferences with three of his papers being selected as being amongst the top papers within their divisions. He is a past president of CLASP: The CUNY League of Active Speech Professors and a past review co-editor for American Communication Journal.

Courses

MCM 30: Mass Media 
SPE 10: Introduction to Communication Studies
SPE 11: Listening and Speaking Skills
SPE 12: Interpersonal Communication 
SPE 21: Effective Public Speaking 
SPE 25: Small Group Communication 
SPE 26: Intercultural Communication 

Education

Bachelor of Arts, Cape Breton University, Communication, 1997 
Master of Arts, University of Maine, Communication, 1999 
Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, University of Maine, Women’s Studies Concentration, 2001 
Doctor of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University, Speech Communication, 2004 

College Teaching

Lab facilitator: Cape Breton University, Communication Department, 1996/97

Graduate instructor: University of Maine, Communication Department, 1997/99

Lecturer: University of Maine, Communication Department, 2000

Graduate instructor: University of Maine, Women’s Studies Department, 2001

Graduate instructor: Southern Illinois University, Speech Communication Department, 2001/04

Assistant professor: Kingsborough/CUNY, Communications Department, 2004/09

Associate professor: Kingsborough/CUNY, Communications Department, 2009/13

Professor: Kingsborough/CUNY, Communications Department, 2013-present

Dean of Faculty: Kingsborough/CUNY, Communications Department, 2021-present

Selected Publications and/or Other Resources

Alley-Young, G. (2005). An individual's experience: A socio-cultural critique of communication apprehension research. Texas Speech Communication Journal, 30(1), 36-46. 

Alley-Young, G. (2006). Celebrate diversity, even if that includes the hopelessly superficial: Lessons on gender, race, class and sexuality in Legally Blonde. NDJST: The North Dakota Journal of Speech & Theatre, 19, 14-25. 

Alley-Young, G. (2007). Two weddings and a monsoon: Analyzing the intersections of mass communication and culture using Monsoon Wedding. In Narro & Ferguson (Eds.). Diversity & Mass Communication: Evidence of Impact (pp. 267-284). Southlake, TX: Fountainhead. 

Alley-Young, G. (2008). Space and the body in the rhetoric of Frederick Douglass and Virginia Woolf. Florida Journal of Communication, 37(1), 47-56. 

Alley-Young, G. (2008). Articulating identity: Refining postcolonial and whiteness perspectives on race within communication studies. Communication Review, 8(3), 307-321. 

Alley-Young, G. (2008). Dear Gerald…Using advice letter writing to teach the concept of codependence. Texas Speech Communication Journal, 33(1),78-81. 

Alley-Young, G. (2008). "Try to see this movie as an educational movie about life will you": A critical cultural study of race and education in popular film. In Bekerman, Burbules, Giroux, & Silberman-Keller (Eds.). Mirror Images: Popular Culture & Education (pp. 23-38). New York: Peter Lang. Spanish version Cultura popular y educacion. Imágenes espejadas by Miño y Dávila (Argentina). 

Alley-Young, G. (2009). Using 'The Lure of Gang Life' to teach interpersonal and group attraction. Communication Teacher, 23(1), 48-51. 

Alley-Young, G. (2010). From the outskirts and the back of the class: Representation, eurocentrism and media imperialism in two popular French education films. In Uslu (Ed.). Media Critics 2010. Turkey: Beta Academic/Germany: Peter Lang. Turkish version by Beta Academic (Turkey) and English version by Peter Lang (Germany).

Alley-Young, G. (2011). She has 50,000 coaches: Re-envisioning young women of color as learners in three popular films. In Brunson, Lampl, & Jordan-Jackson (Eds.). Interracial Communication: Contexts, Communities, and Choices (pp. 427- 444). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.

Alley-Young, G. (2012). From the outskirts and the back of the class: Representation, eurocentrism and media imperialism in two popular French education films. In C. Bilgili & N.T. Akbulut (Eds.) Media Critiques 2011: Broken Grounds 1: Mass Communication and Transformation (pp. 239-257). Sofia, Bulgaria: Prof. Marin Drinov Academic Publishing House.

Alley-Young, G. (2013). Bu kimin peçesidir? Sosyal medya yoluyla Müslüman kadın kimliğini sorgulamak, yaratmak 've aymak (pp. 93-120). In C. Bilgili, N.T. Akbulut, Z.K. Uslu & G. S. Ulagay (Eds.) (2013). Medya Eleştirileri 2013: Sosyal Medya 've ğ Toplumu-2: Kültür Kimlik Siyaset. İstanbul, Türkiye: Beslenme Saati.

Alley-Young, G. (2014). Bigger, fatter, gypsier: Gender spectacles and cultural frontlines in My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding. In A.F. Slade, A.J. Narro & B.P. Buchanan (Eds.) Reality television: Oddities of Culture (pp. 123-141). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Alley-Young, G. (2014/2015). [The] Earl had to die: Teaching popular murder ballads and oral traditions via The Dixie Chicks. JCSTAND: Journal of Communication, Speech and Theatre Association of North Dakota, 27, 45-51.

Alley-Young, G. (2016). Technology Tools for Students with Autism: Innovations that Enhance Independence and Learning [Book review]. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 41(3), 521-523.

Alley-Young, G. (2017). Creating digital videos in an ESL learning community to develop communication skills and content area knowledge. In S.P. Ferris & H. Wilder (Eds.), Unplugging the classroom: Teaching with technologies to promote students' lifelong learning (pp.13-35). Cambridge, MA: Elsevier.

Alley-Young, G. (2018). Critical security studies (Welsh school). In B.A. Arrigo (Ed.) The

SAGE encyclopedia of surveillance, security, and privacy (pp. 249-249). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. http://doi.org/10.4135/9781483359922.n105

Alley-Young, G. (2019). [Review of the film The kindergarten teacher by Sara Colangelo & Nadav Lapid]. The Popular Culture Studies Journal, 7(1), 215-218.

Alley-Young, G. (2020). Secret superhero in a black burka: A cultural analysis of identity politics, representation, and impact in the Burka Avenger. In H.S. Ghabra, F.Z. Chrifi Alaoui, S. Abdi, & B.M. Calafell (Eds.) Negotiating identity and transnationalism: Middle Eastern and North African communication and critical cultural studies (pp. 183-204). New York: Peter Lang.

Alley-Young, G. (2021). Thoroughly (Un)Modern Downton Abbey: Interrogating

Gender/Sexual Dynamics and Whiteness Boundaries. In D.I. Rios & C.A. Lin (eds.). (2021). Television dramas and the global village: Storytelling through race and gender (pp. 159-173). New York: Lexington Books.

Alley-Young, G. (2021). Co-opting voice and cultivating fantasy: Contextualizing and critiquing

the A Gay Girl in Damascus hoax blog. In D. Sharma (Ed.) Ethics, ethnocentrism and social science research (pp. 122-147). New York: Peter Lang.

Alley-Young, G. (2022). Bitter living through science: Melodramatic and moral readings of gay

conversion therapy in A Place to Call Home. In K. Byrne, J.A. Taddeo & J. Leggott (eds.). Diagnosing history: Medicine in television period drama (pp. 260-276). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

Alley-Young, G. (2022). Marine or Mercy: Constructing self, RASM, nation, and leadership in

Eurovision and French presidential politics. In J. Cubbage (Ed.), Critical race media literacy: Themes and strategies for media education (pp. 207–223). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003182252-14Alley-Young, G. (2023). Social media and terrorist financing. In S. N. Romaniuk, C.K. Amparo, & P.H. Fabe (Eds.) Countering terrorist and criminal financing (pp.85-95). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Research Interests

​Intercultural communication
Interpersonal communication
Popular cultural studies
Critical perspectives on identity and education

Awards Recognition, Distinctions and Grants

Scholarships

Ann Terry Graduation Scholarship Recipient, Cape Breton University, 1997
Atlantic Provinces Graduate Tuition Scholarship (offer declined), University of Maine, 1997 

Distinctions

Finalist for Speech Dept. Research and Creative Activity Award, Southern Illinois University, 2003 
Preliminary examinations designated "Pass with Distinction," Southern Illinois University, 2003 
Top paper runner-up in the Voices of Diversity interest group at the Eastern Communication Association Annual Convention, 2005 

Top faculty paper in the Popular Communication division at the Southern States Communication Association Annual convention, 2017

Grants

(with Shauna Vey and Patricia Sokolski) $10,000 CUNY Faculty Development Grant, 2007-08

Institutional Affiliations / Professional Societies

​National Communication Association
Southern States Communication Association

Personal Interests

​Travel, reading, watching films set in schools or dealing with teachers and/or students, and 
spending time with friends and family.