Rate My Professor Katherine Hampsten

Katherine Hampsten, Ph.D., is a professor of Communication Studies at St. Mary's University of San Antonio, where she has made significant contributions both in teaching and administration. She earned her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University, Master of Arts from Baylor University, and Bachelor of Arts from Baylor University. Throughout her tenure at St. Mary's, Hampsten has served in key leadership roles, including Assistant Department Chair, Graduate Program Director, Academic Assessment Coordinator, and Assistant Dean.

Hampsten's scholarship and teaching focus on the intersections of communication, gender, identity, and work. In 2016, she received the St. Mary’s Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her publications include the co-edited book Teaching Popular Culture in the Humanities Classroom (Lexington Books, 2025, with A. Archiopoli and E. Hatfield), the authored textbook Communicating Online: Theories and Applications (Kendall Hunt, 2024), refereed journal articles "Embracing discomfort and resisting a return to the ‘good old days’" in Communication Education (2021, 70(2), 208-210) and "Challenges in working with portraiture" in Journal of Applied Communication Research (2015, 43(4), 468-471), and book chapters “Good” mothering and the question of migrant mothers at the border in Beyond Biology: Rhetorics of Motherhood in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2023, eds. V. Renegar and K. Cole) and "Revisiting representations of Sarah Palin as the ideal working mother" in Gender, Sexuality and Race in American Politics (Lexington Books, 2019, ed. L. L. Montalbano). In April 2025, she presented "Looking Back to Look Forward: Industrial Era Utopias and Considerations for Organizational Life Today" in the Faculty Research Spotlight series for established faculty.