Associate Professor of Business
Faculty Directory
Research Focus
Since joining Mason in 2000, I have pursued teaching and research around global impact and sustainability, argumentation and persuasion, and political communication and legislation. The first area is important because enormous global challenges or “wicked problems” abound and business has a critical leadership role to play in solving those challenges. Moreover, higher education has a responsibility to educate the next generation of leaders/changemakers. The second area of research is central to understanding the role of language in social change. The third area of research recognizes the tremendous value policy has in addressing global challenges.
I am the author of Grim Fairy Tales: The Rhetorical Construction of American Welfare Policy and a co-editor of Readings on Political Communication. My work has appeared in outlets like The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Political Communication, and Rhetoric & Public Affairs. I am passionate about teaching and received the 2005 George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award, 2017 OSCAR Mentoring Excellence Award, and 2019 George Mason University Alumni Association Faculty of the Year Award. As Mason’s Director of Global Impact and Engagement, I support community partnerships and university-wide initiatives that engage students of all majors in social enterprise. I am deeply involved with sustainability initiatives including: co- founder of the Honey Bee Initiative and liaison to the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative, Principles of Responsible Management Education, and AshokaU.
Current Projects
■ Let Your Sons and Daughters Prophesy: The Reformation as Hermeneutical Shift, a book-length manuscript.
■ “Sustainable Beekeeping, Community Driven-Development, and Tri-Sector Solutions with Impact”.
Select Publications
■ Gring-Pemble, L., et al. (Forthcoming). Business Education for a Better World. In Redesigning Liberal Education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
■ Gring-Pemble, L. M., & Chen, C. W. (2018). Patriarchy Prevails: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Equal Pay Discourses. Women & Language, 41 (2), 79-103.
■ Levasseur, D. G., & Gring- Pemble, L. M. (2015). Not all capitalist stories are created equal: Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital narrative and the deep divide in American economic rhetoric. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 18(1), 1-38.
■ Mahatmya, D., & Gring-Pemble, L. M. (2014). DREAMers and their families: A family impact analysis of the DREAM Act and implications for family well-being. Journal of Family Studies, 20(1), 79-87.