Willamette recently honored Brooks’ dedication to teaching and service with the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s 2016 Exemplary Teacher Award. Brooks holds a PhD in Communication Arts, with emphases in Rhetoric and Afro-American Studies, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research and teaching interests are inspired by fundamental questions concerning how people in America talk about race: whose voices are silenced? How? Which perspectives are privileged? Why and to what effect? And how do conversations about race engage with the legacy of racism? Brooks explores answers to these questions with students in the Rhetorical Theory and African American Public Discourse courses she regularly teaches.