WRD alumni and faculty share their recent professional and academic achievements. Alumni Jessica Vician (MA in NMS 2013) and colleague Libby VanWhy (MS in HCI 2014) launched YOUparent.com, a parenting website that provides community support for child success, in December 2013. Laura Collins (MA in NMS 2013) designed the winning logo for the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation’s new project, Gen Ops Plus. The project expands grant-making opportunities for Chicago-region art groups. Ana Milena Ribero (MA in WRD 2009) received the Scholars for the Dream Award from the Conference for College Composition and Communication.
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WoRDing It Your Way with Joe Anderson & Mark Lazio
This quarter, we feature two students who recently graduated from the MA in WRD and the Teaching Apprenticeship Program (TAP). Joe Anderson and Mark Lazio both received MA in WRD 2013. Here, they share with us how the TAP program helped them achieve their academic and post-graduation goals.
Continue readingWRD Professor Explores the Rhetoric of Green Spaces
On Tuesday, February 11, WRD Professor Christine Skolnik participated in “Ecological Imaginings,” an interdisciplinary panel discussion sponsored by DePaul’s Institute for Nature and Culture. In her talk, “Imagined Ecofutures,” Skolnik explored the persuasive, imaginative rhetoric of visual urban plans and their implications for ecological restoration. Skolnik, who holds a PhD in English and Rhetoric from Penn State, recently completed an MA in Urban Sustainability and is a faculty advisor for the Institute for Nature and Culture.
Continue readingContent Strategy for a Cause
In AQ 2013, students in NMS 509/WRD 530: Multimedia Content Strategy partnered with three nonprofit organizations to explore how organizations can strategically collect and use photographs and video. The course offered students the chance to apply practical and critical readings on content strategy to the real-world cases of their partner organizations. The idea for this course came from Assistant Professor and Director of MA in WRD Lisa Dush’s interest in new media storytelling in organizations.
Continue readingWRD Offers China Teaching Program
Our latest newsletter profiled Professor Jason Schneider’s summer travels to Huaqiao University. This teaching opportunity is a product of the connections that Schneider and WRD Chair Peter Vandenberg forged during those visits. For TESOL grads interested in teaching abroad, the connection between DePaul and Huaqiao makes the process much more accessible. Schneider stated that DePaul is “offering an opportunity to go abroad in which much of the leg work and administrative work has already been completed.”
Continue readingWRD Department Moves From McGaw
Between the autumn and winter quarters, the WRD department moved from McGaw Hall to a new home on the third floor of the Schmitt Academic Center. WRD shares the third floor with the Department of Modern Languages, and the University Center for Writing-based Learning is one floor below. The new space offers the department a more central location on campus, improved technology spaces, and new opportunities for student activities. Directly across the hall from the department is the WRD Invention Lab. Housed in SAC 302, the lab is a space for graduate and undergraduate students to work collaboratively. NMS graduate
Continue readingDePaul Students Published in The New York Times
Three students, enrolled in winter quarter WRD 104 sections taught by WRD instructor Justin Staley, recently had their letters to the editor published in The New York Times. Staley includes writing a letter to the editor as an assignment for his WRD 104 courses. Emily Mosher and Cecilia Metzdorff both responded to Daniel Jones’s article “Romance at Arm’s Length”, which examines the evolution of online relationships. Mosher is a freshman at DePaul majoring in Psychology. Metzdorff is also a freshman majoring in business.
Continue readingDiscover the Chicago Women Rhetors Website
Celebrate Women’s History Month and explore Chicago Women Rhetors, a website created by students in WRD 361: Topics in Alternative Rhetoric – Chicago Women Rhetors, taught by Professor Julie Bokser. The site features the work of women whose words and actions have helped shape Chicago. As the site explains, “We created this site to contribute to women’s history in the rhetorical tradition.” Each student researched a figure or organization, and then designed a memorial, using rhetorical skills and theory to thoughtfully shape the memory of this figure.
Continue readingQ: What would your dream WRD or NMS course look like?
Did you know Rutgers University offers students a class on Queen Bey? “Politicizing Beyonce” explores the boundaries / non-boundaries between American race, gender and sexual politics, but if this class wouldn’t do it for you, what would your dream course look like? Do you want to learn more on corporate Digital Asset Management (DAM)? Or how about spending 10 weeks exploring rhetoric, sports, and gender? As always, leave your answers in the comments or on FB and we’ll post them next week.
Continue readingA: Why did you choose to study WRD or NMS at DePaul?
“I decided to enroll in the WRD program because I wanted to study the complexities, both practical and theoretical, surrounding the use of writing. I particularly wanted to develop my skills as a writer and improve my practice as a writing teacher by using theory as a tool to analyze my own habits and dispositions.
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