Roddy Nikpour
Senator spotlight: 2025
Assistant Teaching Professor
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Downtown Phoenix campus
Q&A with senator
ASU affiliated:
What unit do you represent?
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
How many years have you been employed at ASU?
If you count working as a Medieval Latin research assistant, college radio director, and course grader, I’ve been employed by ASU since 2012. While working in public media, I’ve hustled as a grader, then as a faculty associate in 2019. Having developed a podcasting course, I joined ASU full time in my current role as an assistant teaching professor in 2021.
TL;DR: The answer is somewhere between 4 years and 13 years depending on how you count it!
What other institutions have you taught at before coming to ASU?
Before my career in public media, I taught Latin and English at Gilbert Classical Academy.
What is your research and/or creative activities focus?
As a teaching professor, my primarily role is teaching students in my areas of expertise: audio storytelling, podcast production, podcast ideation, on-mic presence, radio programming, public media, audio editing, and scoring. I strongly believe in creating service-oriented programming intended to solve real problems for audiences, connecting them with where they live and the people around them. Some of my ongoing work in the industry includes producing and scoring award-winning shows like KEXP’s 50 Years of Hip-Hop, with each episode paying homage to a different year of the genre’s history, as well as KUER’s Sent Away, an investigative series into Utah’s so-called “troubled teen” industry. While my appointment with Cronkite does not involve classical studies, I also enjoy helping out with SILC’s annual Fall Forum (ask me about translating a SpongeBob episode into Latin).
Senate affiliated:
How many years have you served in the Senate?
1 year (started Senate service in Fall 2024)
Why did you decide to get involved with the Senate?
I’m interested in meaningful leadership opportunities that help me serve our students, augment my colleagues’ work, and fulfill the university’s nine design aspirations.
Describe what you have learned (or hope to learn) during your time in the Senate?
Bureaucracy is a slow-moving behemoth. Also, provosts and presidents are much more approachable than you think. Don’t be shy!
What committees have you participated in, or would like to participate in and what were you able to (or hope to) accomplish?
I co-chair the Personnel Committee with Dr. Jodi Swanson. We are working on creating stability for career-track faculty without undermining the traditional tenure process and ASU’s entrepreneurial approach (which, by design, requires flexibility in whom it hires and when). Solutions have included creating a progressive multi-year contract system (e.g. starting on a 1-year contract, then progressing to 3-year or 5-year contracts), as well as options for paid academic leave (i.e. sabbatical-like time off).
What would you say to your peers who might be considering accepting a nomination or nominating himself or herself for a position in the University Senate?
So much of what we accomplish in these spaces is informed by people’s confidence, so don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. All of us are making it up as we go, and almost everyone is waiting for someone to speak up who has a good dose of confidence —not so much that it comes off as arrogance, nor so little that it comes off as irrelevance. Be vulnerable, focused, and collaborative.