Virginia Sánchez Sánchez

Education

PhD, Purdue University (Organizing for Change)

MA, Purdue University (Organizational Communication)

Honors BA, Marquette University (Corporate Communication, Advertising)

About Me

Virginia Sánchez Sánchez is an assistant professor of communication in the School of Communication and Journalism. As an instructor, she likes to explore themes of culture and power to help students develop effective intercultural communication skills. She embraces active learning to get students excited about a topic through various in-class discussions and activities that center students in the learning process.

Her research brings together work on immigration, callings, and resilience. Recently, she has sought to investigate how immigrants make sense of policy, immigrant portrayals, and their lives through the lens of “calling.” She seeks to contribute to the growing dialogues and debates about immigration in the United States, draw attention to the stories/experiences of immigrants, and challenge the portrayals of immigrants that deem some more “deserving” than others. She has also collaborated on several research projects including a content analysis of resilience processes in refugee narratives, a study to test the theoretical link between the enactment of resilience and resources available, and an analysis of structural challenges faced by nurses. She has presented her work at annual meetings of the National Communication Association, International Communication Association, and Southern States Communication Association. She was one of three recipients for the 2020 Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Outside of work, she practices photography, enjoys hiking, and occasionally bakes. She also loves spending time with her cats and visiting family in Jalisco, MX and Milwaukee, WI.

Research Interests

themes of culture and power, bringing together research on immigration, discourse, and career studies

Publications

Sánchez Sánchez, V. (2021). “Dando las gracias a mis papás”: a discursive analysis of perceptions of policy and callings across generations of latinx immigrants. Journal of Communication, 71(6), 976-1000. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqab037

Sánchez Sánchez, V. (2021). Immigration and women’s suffrage: Considering the construction of citizenship and the role of anti-immigrant sentiment. Women & Language, 44(2), 339-343. https://doi.org/10.34036/WL.2021.023

Mouton, A., Sánchez Sánchez, V., Renner, M.M., & Deutsch Cermin, A. (2021). Fostering a reimagined professional stability: An autoethnographic exploration of how our (work) group found hope and healing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine, 6(1), 18. https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/vol6/iss1/18

Sánchez Sánchez, V., & Lillie, H. (2019). And then the war came: A content analysis of resilience processes in the narratives of refugees from Humans of New York. International Journal of Communication, 13, 4240-4260. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10231/2780

Courses Taught

• COMM 3450: Intercultural Communication
• COMM 3500: Foundations of Human Communication
• COMM 5450: Communication and Immigration
• COMM 7000: Communication Theory