Vanderbilt University’s Vanessa Beasley to Lead the Rhetoric Society of America

Vanessa Beasley, associate provost and dean of residential faculty at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, has been selected to lead the Rhetoric Society of America. The purpose of the society is to identify new areas within the subject of rhetoric, to stimulate research, experimentation, and cooperation within the field, and to sponsor the publication of materials dealing with rhetoric. Dr. Beasely will serve for one year as president-elect and then become president of the society in July 2022.

Before assuming her current post at Vanderbilt in 2018, Dr. Beasley was dean of the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt. Dr. Beasley is an associate professor of communication studies at the university and holds an affiliate position in political science. Before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2008, Professor Beasley taught at Texas A&M University, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and the University of Georgia.

Dr. Beasley’s areas of academic expertise include the rhetoric of American presidents, political rhetoric on immigration, and media and politics. She is the author of You, the People: American National Identity in Presidential Rhetoric (Texas A&M University Press, 2003).

Dr. Beasley is a 1988 graduate of Vanderbilt University, where she majored in speech communication and theatre arts. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in speech communication from the University of Texas.