Skip to main content

Victoria T. Fields

Profile picture for Victoria T.  Fields

Contact Information

3001 Lincoln Hall, MC-456
702 South Wright Street
Urbana IL 61801

Office Hours

By appointment
Doctoral Student, Instructor of Record

Biography

Victoria T. Fields is a former McNair Scholar, doctoral student, and Instructor of Record in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Victoria's research centers on Black women's rhetoric, rhetorical history, archival rhetorics, social movements, and sports. She also has a graduate minor in Gender and Women’s Studies, with a focus on Black feminism and activism. At Illinois, Victoria was recently awarded the 2024 Dianne Pinderhughes Fellowship Award from the Department of African American Studies to support her dissertation research on Black feminist social movements. In addition, Victoria was selected as the 2023 Ebony Excellence Award for Instructor of the Year by the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois.

Victoria has also been selected as a fellow for the National Women's Studies Association’s (NWSA) 2024 Women of Color Leadership Project (WOCLP). Additionally, she was also accepted into the 2024 Oral History Center's Advanced Summer Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

Her work has been published in Volume 11 of the Eastern Michigan University McNair Scholars Journal, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and the Sociology of Sport Journal.

Education

B.S in Communication and Sport Management, Eastern Michigan University, Summa Cum Laude

M.A in Communication (Rhetoric concentration), University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign

Grants

The Color Purple Travel Award, The Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender, 2024

Dianne Pinderhughes Fellowship Award, Department of African American Studies, 2024

Andrea Lunsford Diversity Fund Award, Rhetoric Society of America, 2024

Graduate College Conference Travel Award, 2021, 2024

President's Research in Diversity Travel Assistance (Competitive Award) Program, 2023

Student Caucus Travel Grant, National Communication Association, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023

Friends Travel Support Award, Department of Communication, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023

Dianne Pinderhughes Fellowship Award Honorable Mention, Department of African American Studies, 2023

 

 

 

 

Awards and Honors

Wayne Brockriede Summer Graduate Fellowship in Communication, 2023

Ebony Excellence Instructor of the Year awarded by the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois, 2023

Certificate of Recognition for Black Staff of the Year Runner Up awarded by the Central Black Student Union at the University of Illinois, 2023

Elizabeth Winter Young Summer Fellowship, 2020

University of Illinois Health Maker Lab Fellow, 2021-2022

Wayne Brockriede Graduate Fellow in Communication, 2021-2023

UIUC Humanities Research Institute: Humanities Without Walls Graduate Research Fellow , 2022

Certificate of Achievement in Recognition of Academic Achievements Related to Health Equity, Access, and Justice awarded by Champaign-Urbana Public Health District and their Equity Council, 2022

Illinois Summer Pre-doctoral Institute Fellow, 2019

Illinois ASPIRE Fellow, 2019-2020

List of Teachers Ranked as “Excellent” by Their Students, Fall 2019, Fall *2020, Spring *2021, *Fall 2021, *Spring 2022 *Fall 2023, *Spring 2023, *Fall 2023, Spring 2024 (* Connotes ratings were "Outstanding.")

 

 

 

 

 

Courses Taught

*CMN 101: Public Speaking

*CMN 210: Public Communication in Everyday Life

*CMN 340: Visual Politics

**CMN 250: Social Movement Communication 

*CMN 214: Organizational Communication & Diversity 

*connotes Instructor of Record

**connotes Course Assistant 

 

Additional Campus Affiliations

Graduate College Grad Hourly Position - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office, 2022-2023

Graduate Representative for the Department of Communication's Diversity, Equity and Justice Committee, 2022-2023

Graduate Minor in Gender and Women's Studies, 2021-2022

Graduate College Executive Committee, Graduate Representative, 2021-2023

We CU Community Engaged Scholars Program, Team Lead, 2021

Students Advising on Graduate Education (SAGE), 2020-2021

 

 

 

In the News:

Engaged Pedagogy, Teach Talk Listen and Learn Podcast, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (2024)

"Humanities Without Walls connects PhD students with community organizations" (2022)

Highlighted Publications

Journal Articles

Knoester, C., Allison, R., & Fields, V. T. (2023). Reconstructing, challenging, and negotiating sex/gender in sport: U.S. public opinion about transgender athletes' rights, rights for athletes with varied sex characteristics, sex testing, and gender segregation. Sociology of Sport Journal. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2022-0121        

Knoester, C., & Fields, V. T. (2020). Mother–child engagement in sports and outdoor activities: Intensive mothering, purposive leisure, and implications for health and relationship closeness. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 55(7), 933–952. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690219855916

Fields, V. T., (2018). "The rhetorical discourse surrounding female intersex athletes." McNair Scholars Research Journal, 1(11), p. 31-43.

 

Book Reviews      

Fields, V. T. (2022). Politics for the Love of Fandom: Fan-Based Citizenship in a Digital World. Quarterly Journal of Speech.