Global media scholar, higher education leader becomes Cronkite School vice dean

Celeste González de Bustamante has stepped into her new role as vice dean at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“I’m incredibly honored and privileged to be Cronkite’s new vice dean,” González de Bustamante said. 

González de Bustamante comes to Cronkite from the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. She was the founding director of the Center for Global Change and Media at Moody College of Communication. The center seeks to address some of the most pressing issues by collaborating across disciplines to create media projects. She also held the Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Chair in Communication at Moody, one of the highest honors a faculty member can receive.

Throughout her career, González de Bustamante has been heavily involved in global journalism. Before her time at UT Austin, she co-founded and served as director of the University of Arizona Center for Border and Global Journalism. While at Arizona, she was associated with the UA Center for Latin American Studies and was an affiliated faculty member of the Department of History, the Mexican American Studies Department and the graduate programs in Human Rights Practice. 

González de Bustamante attended San José State University, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in broadcast journalism and foreign languages. She also received her master’s degree in Latin American studies and a doctorate in history at Arizona.

She has received national awards for her book "Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-First Century."

Cronkite School Dean Battinto Batts said about González de Bustamante, “Her experience in building and overseeing programs, supervising faculty and academic affairs, expertise in innovation, support of experiential learning, and track record in establishing new avenues of inquiry will all be of tremendous value to Cronkite and ASU.” 

Before moving to academia, González de Bustamante worked for 15 years as a broadcast journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area and at network affiliates in the Southwest.

Below, she discusses more about her background and role as Cronkite’s vice dean. 

Question: How would you describe your leadership philosophy, and what can the Cronkite community expect from you as vice dean?

Answer: Values help drive what I’m doing professionally and personally. Those core values are purpose, potential, integrity and well-being. I’m always thinking about those things because, as a vice dean, one of the things critical to my role is really helping students, faculty, staff — whoever is part of the Cronkite community — achieve their full potential. 

This idea of well-being also applies to the well-being of the school, the university and the state. I see my role as helping every single person in the school and Cronkite community achieve their potential, and really do so in a creative space where everybody’s thriving and flourishing. 

Q: What attracted you to the Cronkite School at this point in your career?

A: I have been a longtime admirer of the Cronkite School. When I saw this position was opening, I felt like the stars were aligning because Cronkite needs somebody who has experience with faculty mentoring, graduate student mentoring, somebody with a global background; so I felt like these are all things I bring with me. 

I love the future focus of the school. As a historian, that’s kind of strange, but I feel like if we’re not part of the conversation about the future right now, it’s going to be written for us instead of us writing our own future.

The charter of ASU being measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed really speaks to what I want to do as a vice dean, as a faculty member and as a professor. 

Q: Your work reflects a strong global perspective. How can that perspective enrich Cronkite's programs and research?

A: I have been fortunate to work with colleagues, faculty and journalists in so many different places around the world. I have worked with faculty on six continents now. It’s been incredibly enriching for me, and it’s helped me to understand the world beyond our nation’s borders. 

Historically, we’ve thought of the United States as bringing our technical, or other kinds of know-how, to other parts of the world. But there’s a lot that we can learn from people doing journalism or communicating in other parts of the world, because we’re going through similar challenges.

I hope that we can get more support for faculty to expand their research in other parts of the world. That will help enhance the research profile of the school. I’m really excited about that part of my role at Cronkite.

Q: As you begin this role, what opportunities do you see that have the greatest potential to elevate the school?

A: Cronkite has such a great legacy that it stands upon. We’ve got nine new degrees being launched, and I can’t tell you of any school around the country or world that’s launching that many new degrees at one particular moment in time. 

I think the greatest opportunities are going to be building upon those new degrees, attracting students from around the country and world. Also, increasing the strength of the doctoral program. We have some amazing doctoral students at Cronkite. I’d like to see that grow. Also, funding for the doctoral program and increased opportunities for doctoral students to work with faculty. Once you have a really strong doctoral program, that’s going to increase opportunities for faculty to work with doctoral students. It’s going to increase the research profile of the school in ways we can’t even imagine. 

Q: How can the school continue to prepare students for careers that may not yet exist?

A: It’s one of the biggest challenges we have, but I go back to building skills. Building the skills and knowledge that students and aspiring journalists and communicators need, no matter what the environment’s going to look like. Also, giving them the skills to not see through a crystal ball, necessarily, but see how they can apply those skills, because there are so many different transferable skills — writing, communicating verbally, video skills — that students are learning and can be applied in so many different fields beyond journalism and communication. Let’s give them the really good skills — technical skills, as well as the interpersonal skills — that they are going to need to be able to thrive. 

Q: Experiential learning has long been a hallmark of Cronkite. How do you see those opportunities evolving?

A: Experiential learning has been a hallmark of my faculty experience. I have created so many different courses and programs where students learn on the ground, travel and meet stakeholders. That’s the best way for students, whether they’re journalism students or any kind of student, to learn — by going into the communities. 

One of the things that I would love to see in the future: Cronkite has so many opportunities for study abroad, so how can we increase the percentage of those students who can participate in study abroad? I think that a lot of students would like to, but they just can’t, or maybe it’s other opportunities they can’t participate in because of financial reasons. I think that’s going to be important for us in the future to really look for support for those students.

Q: What trends in the media industry should the school be preparing for today? 

A: Certainly, journalism is evolving because of AI. We need to make sure we are part of those conversations. I think that’s going to be a key piece for our curriculum — how are we including skills related to AI and thinking about the ethical dimensions? How are we teaching our students to use AI? How are we teaching them to ethically use it? That goes for journalism practices, but also the environmental dimensions of all of this. 

Q: What leadership lesson has had the greatest influence on your career?

A: I was still in high school and worked in this little cafe in a car wash. My boss didn’t even really know she was teaching us about leadership, but she just had such a deep respect for everybody on her team. She taught us how to treat each other with deep respect, was very open to ideas, had a super strong work ethic and taught us to seek excellence in what we were doing at this little cafe. She also had a great sense of humor, and I hope that I bring that to my work. 

Q: Outside of your professional life, what are some interests or experiences that help define who you are?

A: I’m a runner and a photographer. Sometimes I’m a running photographer because I like to stop and take photos of things along the way. I like to run in nature, if possible. In terms of how that helps to define who I am, I like to take a challenge and then develop a skill to meet the challenge. If it’s running, building my stamina so that I can continue to run. I’m always trying to build on a skill.