About

Dr. Cle Cousins joined the UNCP faculty in 2018. She teaches broadcast journalism and mass communication courses and serves on the Student Affairs & Campus Life committee of the Faculty Senate. Prior to joining UNCP, she taught at Bladen Community College in Dublin, North Carolina. She also served as an adjunct instructor at Methodist University in Fayetteville. Prior to entering the field of education, Dr. Cousins was a journalist for more than 20 years for various newspapers and TV stations in the Southeast. Most recently, she was the assistant news director and education franchise reporter for WCTI, the ABC affiliate in New Bern. Cousins also worked for stations in Greenville, Raleigh, Tampa and Orlando. Her newspaper career included stints at The Item in Sumter, South Carolina, and The Daily Reflector in Greenville, North Carolina.  As a journalist, she won several awards for her writing and reporting, including the South Carolina Press Association Award for Featuring Writing, The Cox Newspapers Award, and the Southern Journalism Award. Dr. Cousins was a member of the news management team at WNCT-TV when the station won the Edward R. Murrow Award for coverage of Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

In 2022, Dr. Cousins was named a Fellow of the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida International University by the AEJMC Commission on the Status of Women. Her research interests include racial stereotyping in media.

She’s a native of Maple Hill, North Carolina, and lives in Fayetteville with her husband, William.

Ph.D. Mass Communication, Regent University

M.A. English, East Carolina University

B.A. Communication, East Carolina University