Lecturer in the English Department Writing Program

I teach courses on reading, writing, and rhetoric at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where I am also currently involved in a grant-funded project on disability studies and undergraduate education.

I do plenty of writing on the job! I write lesson plans and assignments; I write lots of feedback on my students' writing; I write and respond to countless emails; and I write proposals for different kinds of funding opportunities. I am also currently writing and revising two academic articles for publication. 

When I graduated from GVSU in 2005, I had no idea that I would eventually be working in higher education. After spending a year working at a golf course, I moved out of West Michigan in search of new life experiences. 

First I went to Chattanooga, TN and worked at a local radio station, doing various jobs on and off the air. During this time I also completed my M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (2008).

After a couple of years down south, I returned to West Michigan where I taught as an adjunct professor at Grand Rapids Community College and Muskegon Community College. This is when I discovered my love of teaching and made the decision to get a PhD!

I moved south once again to complete my PhD in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Louisville (2015). Since then, I've taught at universities in Pittsburgh and Indianapolis before landing my current position at U-M Ann Arbor! 

I am so glad that I found the undergraduate writing major at GVSU, and I remember every single course that I took.

I started my undergrad degree as a journalism major but was frustrated by the conventions of journalistic writing. Paradoxically, it felt like there were so many rules to follow that I wasn't able to write clearly at all. I became so focused on following the rules that I lost my purpose and my voice. This was not the major for me.

So, I made the switch to the writing major. The writing major (and it's emphasis on genre, audience, context, purpose, etc.) gave me (1) a sense of the flexibility of writing as it occurs in actual practice, and (2) a way to identify and critically analyze the constraints of genres like those I had encountered in my journalism courses.

The course that stands out to me the most is the capstone course I took with Prof. Roger Gilles on genre and writing. He got us thinking about the rhetorical dimensions of texts, how writing is often driven by convention, how categories of text are forms of social action. In his class, I started to understand something about the social nature of writing and how written texts perform work in the world. This is also when I started to get interested in rhetoric.

The course raised a lot of questions for me that I felt compelled to find answers to, and so that's what I set out to do. I had never thought about writing in this way before -- I thought it was just something you sat down and did! I didn't realize how complex it was. Prof. Gilles provided a truly phenomenal critical thinking experience.

I also enjoyed a class called Writing with Style taught by Prof. Chris Haven and my creative writing workshop with Prof. Ander Monson. These courses got me thinking about when and why a writer might choose to deviate from convention to help a reader see something clearly. I teach my students this same kind of writerly agency to this day.

Very grateful for the experience that I had working as a writing consultant at GVSU's writing center, under the leadership of Prof. Ellen Schendel! In this role I learned how to talk to students of all backgrounds about their writing. I can see now how it set me up for a career of working closely with students to help them develop their strategies, identities, and styles as writers.

I loved my study abroad experience in Dublin. I learned so much about the culture and history of Ireland, and I developed a deep respect and admiration for Prof. Patricia Clark and her husband, Stan!

Although I didn't fully understand it at the time, I am especially grateful that I got to take several classes with Profs. Dan Royer and Roger Gilles, whose brilliant work on Directed Self-Placement has shaped my thinking about education in profound ways. They are a big part of the reason why I decided to pursue an academic career.

I can see now that the Writing Dept/Major at GVSU was very much ahead of its time. Undergraduate writing programs are now popping up at universities all over the U.S. I am so grateful to have had such an intellectually and professionally rewarding experience. Very fond memories of my time at GVSU.

Try not to get too fixated on one linear path. There is no single journey -- you don't know where you will be in 5, 10, or 20 years. You don't know what will stand out to you as memorable or meaningful in 5, 10, or 20 years. You don't know what kinds of opportunities will come your way. It's impossible to predict, so it's smart to stay flexible.

Also: take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and experience of your professors. Ask questions. Have conversations. Read some of the things that they write. Read more in general. Looking back, I wish I had done more of this!