Katherine (“Kathy”) Kelley Howell joined the ORU family in August 2016 as an associate professor of communication. She was promoted to Chair of the Communication & Media Department in August 2017. In May of 2021 she stepped down as chair, and returned to the classroom as a full-time professor. Kathy earned a B.A. at the University of Oklahoma in Communication. She earned her M.A. in Communication at Pepperdine University, with special emphasis in training and development. Pepperdine hired her where she served as a Visiting Professor & Speech Program Coordinator before returning to OU where she earned her Ph.D. in Communication.
Dr. Howell has over 20 years of collegiate-level teaching. Her main area of research is organizational communication, specifically investigating supervisor-subordinate communication, and how trust is communicated in the workplace. Her research has been published in highly regarded academic journals, such as The Leadership Quarterly, Communication Research, and Journal of Business Communication. In addition to her research, she actively teaches, mentors, trains and consults outside the classroom. Her venues include college groups, women’s ministries, city offices, schools and franchised-owned businesses, such as McDonald’s.
She was presented with one of ten Phenomenal Woman awards at her last institution. Kathy loves to travel. She has served in supervisory capacities on mission trips to Costa Rica and Haiti. Kathy’s daily prayer is Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.”