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Volume 9, Issue 1

Alumni Profile: Farooq Kperogi

Abraham Lincoln felt education held the key to opportunity: “I will study and get ready and someday my chance will come,” he said. Nigerian Farooq Adamu Kperogi likewise appreciates his education and the professors who have helped him along the way from assisting his country’s president to his new life as a doctoral student in Georgia.

Kperogi graduated from UL in May, 2006, with a Master of Science in Communication, and was honored as the department's outstanding master's student.

“I truly cherish this award, for it motivates me to give my very best in all things academic and professional.  In fact, it sits to the right of my laptop as a constant reminder of my duty to excellence,” he remarked.

Kperogi is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in communication at Georgia State University in Atlanta and expects to complete his dissertation in 2010. He is also the associate director of research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education and managing editor of the center's peer-reviewed journal, the Atlantic Review of Journalism History.

Kperogi said that he owes his current research activities in the GSU doctoral program to the projects he started with a number of professors in the department here at UL Lafayette.

“For example, the independent study I did with Dr. Ty Adams on the intersection between computer-mediated communication and deliberative democracy has opened an entire vista of research possibilities that I have been exploring since first arriving in Atlanta.  And, I must also tell you, that this work is providing the motivational inspiration for my doctoral dissertation.”

Dr. Adams and Kperogi stay in touch and continue to collaborate on several research projects.        

Kperogi also mentioned Dr. William Swain, whom he said introduced him to a broad range of methodological apparatuses for conducting research.

“I cannot possibly thank him enough for teaching me how to 'do' research, and for also being one of the best professors I ever had in my entire life,” he said.

Yet it was Dr. Bob Buckman who impressed upon Kperogi the singularities and dynamics of the American journalistic style — something new for a Nigerian reared in the British press tradition.

“His pragmatic, hands-on approach to journalism pedagogy has been a guide for my teaching responsibilities here at Georgia State.  Without having taken his classes, I never would have been able to teach journalism at an American institution.”

Mark Your Calendar

Annual Fish & Game Banquet Friday, October 17, 2008 Heymann Alumni Center 600 E. Saint Mary Boulevard Good food and music for Communication alumni, students, faculty and friends.