Marcia Alesan Dawkins’s experience includes teaching and academic leadership positions at the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, New York University, Villanova University, and Long Beach City College. She is currently and Assistant Lecturer, Doctoral Candidate and Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC, where she is completing her doctorate in Rhetoric and Political Communication. Ms. Dawkins’s research concerns the natures of identity and identification as they pertain to personal and public values. Her dissertation focuses on the rhetorical ethos of “passing” in the United States from the late nineteenth through early twenty-first centuries. She lectures throughout the Los Angeles area on this and other important issues.
Ms. Dawkins holds two Bachelor’s Degrees in Communication and Honors from Villanova University, where she was a Presidential Scholar. She also holds a Master of Arts Degree in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University, where she was an Alumni Fellow and graduated Summa Cum Laude.  She remains affiliated with the educational programming department at Interfaith Neighbors, Inc., an after-school program for urban youth in New York City. She presently instructs an adult literacy class at the REACH Literacy Program in San Pedro, California. She also currently serves on the board of directors of the Dee Ervin Foundation, which works to feed underprivileged youths in Palm Desert, California