Alison Boggs

Biography

Biography

Alison Boggs is a scholarly assistant professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. She teaches Reporting Across Platforms (COMJOUR 333), both online and in-person, and Writing in Communication (COM 300). Boggs also runs the college’s prestigious Backpack Journalism program, a donor-funded international reporting expedition for the college’s highest-achieving students. Students are selected for this program through a competitive process, then spend two months preparing under Boggs’s guidance before traveling to conduct reporting over Spring Break. Boggs mentors the students on everything from story selection to interviewing during the journey, then works with them to publish their work.

Student work from this program has been published in regional and national media and won national student reporting awards. The students’ stories – in print, broadcast and radio formats – have been published in media outlets including: CBSNews.com; The Poynter Institute website; The Spokesman-Review; KHQ-TV/Spokane; KXLY-TV/Spokane; The Standard (second-largest newspaper in Kenya); Cascade PBS; Northwest Public Broadcasting; and Washington State Magazine.

Boggs has spoken about the Backpack Journalism program in presentations at the National High School Journalism Convention in April 2025 in Seattle, Washington; and at the same conference in November 2025 in Nashville, highlighting the experiential learning lessons from the reporting expeditions. She has also led panels on it for WSU students, faculty and visiting media professionals through presentations at the annual Murrow Symposium on the WSU campus.

Boggs is an award-winning journalist with two decades of experience in print media as a reporter, editor and online producer. She has reported on topics including business, government, education and social services. As a reporter, she loved telling stories of ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges, such as a young Iraq War veteran’s struggle with PTSD, an ailing older couple’s determination to remain in their own home as they aged, or a retired couple’s effort to raise four great-grandchildren.

Boggs graduated from Tufts University with a bachelor’s degree in French and history and earned her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. She lives in Spokane, Washington, with her partner, Tim, and her border collie, Curly Sue.