Spotlight: Crystal Lumpkins

Before Mizzou:

• Bachelor of Journalism—Broadcast News, University of Missouri–Columbia
• Master’s Degree in Media Communication—Webster University, St. Louis
• Master’s Degree in Management—Webster University, St. Louis

After earning her bachelor’s, Lumpkins held a variety of media positions, including assistant producer at KOB-TV in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and general assignment reporter in Topeka, Kansas. While working for KOB, she earned a dual MA. Lumpkins also worked as a media relations specialist at the University of Missouri—Kansas City for five years, and served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Central Missouri State University before returning to MU for her doctoral degree.

In addition to her career, Lumpkins is the proud mother of two boys and has been married to her college sweetheart, Garry, for 14 years.

At Mizzou:

Lumpkins is currently pursing a doctoral degree in strategic communications at MU’s School of Journalism. As part of her degree, Lumpkins is researching how religiosity and spirituality impact how African-American women process information in health advertisements. She is also working with several faculty members on a collaborative study with the St. Louis School of Public Health:

“We are investigating black newspapers as a viable source for cancer communication to African Americans—it is part of a $10 million grant from the National Cancer Institute. The implications are great as black newspapers have historically been held as a trusted source in the community and could be a strategic tool for health communicators to use in disseminating vital information that could address the alarming statistics that show the disproportionate numbers of African Americans who are dying from several cancers including lung, breast and prostate cancers.”

Lumpkins has a personal as well as professional interest in the outcome of her research; her mother-in-law died of pancreatic cancer in 2002, and she had an aunt who had breast cancer in 2003. This personal interest is also what motivated her to continue her education in strategic communications.

“I felt that it was time that I started to use my public relations knowledge and skills to make a difference,” she says. “Now that I had several years of public relations experience under my belt, we felt it was time to get a strong research background to make an impact not only in the strategic communication (public relations, marketing and advertising) arena but also the academic arena as well.”

After Mizzou:

Lumpkins has accepted a position as assistant professor of strategic communication at the University of Kansas beginning in the fall of 2007. Of her time at Mizzou, Lumpkins says:

“The faculty here is amazing. I have learned so much through the seminar courses I have taken and also working with Ozioma, the collaboration with SLU. The program was intense for me, but the rigorous course work, research papers, presentations at conferences, presentations in class, teaching in the J-School and so much more has stretched me—and prepared me to work at a research university—even though it is at our rival school!”

(Photo by Jim Yates, journalism master's student)