Dr. Brandy Faulkner

Dr. Brandy Faulkner is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and affiliated faculty in Africana Studies.  Her research interests are race and public policy, constitutional and administrative law, and Pan-African theories.  She has earned a CLAHS Certificate of Teaching Excellence, a CLAHS Diversity Award, and has been designated an Instructional Scholar by the Center for Instructional Design and Educational Research.  She has also received the Black Student Alliance’s Community Pillar Award and the Black Graduate Student Organization’s Edward J. McPherson’s Achievement Award for her work on racial justice and for supporting underrepresented students at Virginia Tech. As a scholar-activist, she is committed to cultivating community-based approaches to problem solving and serves several local and national organizations dedicated to social justice and as well as social, political, and economic change. Grounded in principles of communalism, constructive thinking, and connection, her teaching and scholarship emphasize community-based learning and problem-solving.  Diggs Teaching Enhancement Project: Brandy’s Diggs Teaching Enhancement Project, Let The Circle Be Unbroken, engages students and community members in teach-ins as a method of directly addressing the null curriculum. These informal lectures, community conversations, and experiential learning opportunities are participatory and action-oriented, bringing together students from marginalized identities across campus.  Teach-ins started on college campuses during the 1960s and were primarily led by faculty and students engaged in civil rights and anti-war movements and provided students the opportunity to be intimately involved in educational decision making. The sessions help students explore political and social ideologies, learn more about the history of those ideologies, and assess their impact on individuals and communities.