As one of the only Black students in his graduate program at Western Michigan University, Mark Hopson confided in Mark Orbe, his communication professor, about the challenges he experienced throughout his academic career. Some of these included not seeing his lived experiences accurately represented in class discussions or having certain classes completely disregard the broad impact of racism. Orbe became his mentor, urging Hopson to pursue an occupation in higher education with a goal of leaving a lasting impression on students.

“He said, ‘You ought to take that and write about those challenges. You ought to use what you write to inspire other people,’” Hopson said. “That scholar has stuck with me throughout all these years.”

Hopson moved on to teach at George Mason University for 15 years as the director of African and African American Studies and an associate professor of communication. Hopson will be joining Chapman University’s faculty starting Aug. 1 as the first senior director of Ethnic Studies — currently a cluster at Chapman — while simultaneously teaching as a professor in the School of Communication. 

Tracing his interest in communication and ethnic studies back to his time in graduate school, Hopson worked as a director for an after-school and summer program that served about 200 students from largely Black communities. After completing his master’s degree, Hopson worked as a violence prevention specialist that served rural, suburban and largely white communities. Hopson credits both experiences with teaching him the importance of intercultural communication, whether that encompass code-switching or nonverbal socialization.

However, Hopson’s role as an academic is not restricted to his job description, instead extending into the ways in which he seeks to be a source of representation for underrepresented groups on campus. For instance, while at George Mason, Hopson was involved in an initiative for several years known as the W.E.B. DuBois College Men’s Conference, which aimed to analyze and address issues that pertain to the health and wellbeing of Black male students. 

Hopson was also involved in bringing in speakers to George Mason such as Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and American writer and activists Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Ibram X. Kendi. With Chapman’s current ethnic studies program functioning as a cluster, he hopes to not only continue that outreach at Chapman, but to also look into expanding and offering more classes that support the offering of an ethnic studies major.

“It's not necessarily about replacing anything, it's just about collaborating with those scholars (faculty within African and Latinx studies) and making opportunities available to the students of Chapman University,” Hopson said. “In the future, it would be great to see a major in that regard.”

Hopson told The Panther he intends on using his training in intercultural communication to work with the students and faculty to establish a channel of communication regarding Chapman’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

“What I hope to contribute to the DEI initiative is foregrounding communication, as not only a way of locating challenges and tensions, but also creating strategies to overcome those tensions and helping to define issues and discuss issues,” Hopson said. “We sometimes define diversity as different people from different places coming together. But in reality, diversity is taking responsibility for how those different people come together and the degree to which they can succeed within that particular place.”

Hopson said he plans to be more involved with Chapman’s administration compared to his role at George Mason, which he said was “less formal.”

“I am willing and eager to work with members of the administration to address strategies to strengthen Chapman's initiatives,” Hopson said. “At (George) Mason … I've always stepped into gaps where I could, I've always worked with student groups (and) I've always worked with my colleagues to address issues that impact all of us.”

Hopson intends on starting his time at Chapman by familiarizing himself with the students, faculty and school environment. He aims to implement strategies like additional classes, programming and training or working with different committees on campus to address diversity initiatives. Creating connections to current events and life occurrences beyond Chapman’s campus is of utmost importance to Hopson.

“To study ethnic studies, intercultural communication and racism means that we have to deal with issues,” Hopson said. “Those aren't always pleasant; they're not always nice … (but) the goal is never to avoid or to minimize current events.”