College of Communication > Faculty & Staff > Faculty A-Z > Sandra Guy Kolina

Sandra Guy Kolina

Sandra Guy Kolina is an award-winning journalist, editor, freelance writer, and blogger who has written for the past 25 years for the Chicago Sun-Times. Guy also writes for WBEZ.org, Chicago's National Public Radio. 

Throughout her 40-year career as a reporter, Guy has covered issues as diverse as a scandal that denied Appalachian coal miners their black-lung benefits to Chicago, suburban, state and federal politics, crime victims’ and their families’ stories, behind-the-scenes issues on college campuses and significant business, scientific, technological and medical breakthroughs.

Guy also served for three years (2001-2003) as president of the Chicago chapter of the Association for Women Journalists (AWJ).

While reporting in the field, Guy honed her expertise in taking photos and video, as well as live tweeting, blogging and updating online stories in real time.

As a freelance writer for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) magazine for the past 20 years, she has won several awards for coverage of issues involving African-American women technology professionals and their unique struggles and achievements, whether in the military or in high-tech, industrial, academic or entrepreneurial careers.

The recognition included the 2024 Grand Award for a cover feature story on the concept of "tech stewardship," in which, as Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges, engineers get training to understand the nature of the technology that they create — not just its technical nature but the nature of its complex societal impacts — and have the ability to steward it responsibly. Guy Kolina also had won the 2018 Grand Award from the Awards for Publication Excellence for a package of stories in the Society of Women Engineers magazine's research issue; the 2013 Grand Award for a cover feature on diversity's advantages in engineering education; and the Feature Writing Award of Excellence at APEX 2010, the 22nd annual Awards for Publication Excellence, for a cover story on how historically black colleges and universities are maintaining their niche in furthering the engineering careers of African-American women.​

Guy also reported from technology events in Singapore and Geneva, Switzerland, during the height of the dot-com frenzy in the late 1990s as the news editor at Telephony magazine.

Guy's passion throughout her career centers on breaking exclusive, meaningful and in-depth news, leading social-media and strategy-setting projects that are intellectually stimulating, and contributing to a hungry yet responsible and engaging news organization.

A native of Appalachia, Guy started her career at The Coalfield Progress newspaper in southwestern Virginia after she was graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English and communication from Emory & Henry College in 1983. She has started work toward a master’s degree in public policy studies at the University of Chicago.

She has taught as an adjunct instructor at DePaul University in the College of Communication since 2011. And this year, Guy joined the board of Truth and Documentary, a Chicago production company serving non-profits, artists, journalism outlets and documentary filmmakers.

See Guy's webpage at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Achievements at DePaul University

  • Established an exclusive partnership with HOY, a former Chicago Tribune publication. Edited and curated journalism students' in-class stories for publication in the Tribune-owned Millennial publication "Voice It." (Read press release)
  • Developed a two-week program in summer 2019 for 21 visiting deans and PhD professors from Tibilisi, the Republic of Georgia. Worked closely with Denise Mattson, special assistant to the president of DePaul, in creating the program and visiting the universities in Tiblisi to understand their faculty's needs. Arranged to have speakers from the media community, including representatives from the Chicago Tribune, the Better Government Association, Block Club Chicago, MSNBC and more.

Selected Publications

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