Faculty News

Bill DeGenaro (Assistant Professor) was selected as a 2009 Michigan Road Scholar.  This summer he joins two dozen other University of Michigan faculty members from all three U-M campuses for a five-day traveling seminar focusing on the state of Michigan.  Road Scholars learn about the economy, politics, and culture of the state by visiting social service agencies, assembly plants, prisons, and numerous other sites in all regions of Michigan.

Liz Rohan (Associate Professor) was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor.  A hearty congratulations to Professor Rohan!

Tija Spitsberg (Lecturer IV) completed a UM-Dearborn Civic Engagement Fellowship during the 2008-2009 academic year.  As a fellow, Professor Spitsberg studied community service learning scholarship and worked to develop a creative writing course that sends UMD students into local public schools to lead writing workshops.  She will offer the course in Winter, 2010.  Professor Spitsberg is the third Composition faculty member to complete the Civic Engagement faculty development program.

Margaret Willard-Traub (Associate Professor and Writing Program Director) gave a paper entitled "Reflecting Academe" at the Academic Autobiography, Intellectual History, and Cultural Memory in the 20th Century Conference in Pamplona, Spain.  Professor Willard-Traub also published the article "Writing Program and Faculty Professional Development: Which Faculty? What Development?" in the peer-refereed journal Pedagogy.

Four Composition faculty members presented papers at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in San Francisco.  Bill DeGenaro (Assistant Professor) gave a paper entitled "Empathy and the Erasure of Difference."  Margaret Willard-Traub (Associate Professor) presented "The Consequences of Neutrality: The Material Rhetoric of Witnessing."  Randy Woodland (Associate Professor) gave his paper "Representing Gender and Sexuality."  Liz Rohan (Associate Professor) presented "Sharing the Pain (and Glory): Collaboration as a Means of Humanizing the Academic Process." 

 

Liz Rohan (Assistant Professor) published an edited collection, Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process (Southern Illinois UP), co-edited with Gesa Kirsch. Contributors take research beyond the library and the archives and argue that when scholars pursue information and perspectives from existing people and places, unexpected discoveries can enrich their work and their lives. Contributors include Professor Rohan herself, her father Barry Rohan, UMD faculty members Ron Stockton and Kathy Wider, and several prominent voices in the fields of writing studies. More information here: http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/kirschrohanbeyondthearchives.html

Margaret Willard-Traub (Associate Professor) published her article “Scholarly Autobiography: An Alternative Intellectual Practice” in the journal Feminist Studies.

Randy Woodland (Associate Professor) gave two workshops on the pedagogical applications of Second Life, a virtual world or “metaverse” that allows users to learn, interact, and take part in social networking.

Bill DeGenaro (Assistant Professor) published an edited collection, Who Says: Working-Class Rhetoric, Class Consciousness, and Community (Pittsburgh UP).  The book examines how discourse is used to construct working-class identities.  Contributors connect class identity with markers including sexual orientation, race, gender, and body type, analyzing a variety of representations from reality television, comic books published by labor unions, and workplace documents.  Information available here: http://www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=35846

Three Composition faculty members presented papers at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in New Orleans. Bill DeGenaro (Assistant Professor) gave a paper entitled “Intersections of Difference and the   Rhetoric of Detroit.”  Margaret Willard-Traub co-presented “Rhetorical Action and the Classroom” with Deborah Minter from the University of Nebraska.  Randy Woodland (Associate Professor) gave his paper, “A Closer Walk: The Jazz Funeral Trope and the Battle for New Orleans.”