News from DePaul University's Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse
WRD recently caught up with former faculty member Laurie Alfaro as she begins a career at the City Colleges of Chicago. Below, Laurie tells about her new position and shares about her experiences as a student and teacher in WRD’s New Media Studies program. Tell us about your new position at City Colleges. What will you be doing? I am the new Faculty Co-Chair of Computer Information Systems at Wilbur Wright College.
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This week, the WRD Alumni Spotlight features New Media Studies graduate Brendan Bergen. He currently works in Athletic Communications at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. What have you been doing professionally since you earned your degree? After graduating, I accepted a position in Athletic Communications at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. In my role I serve as our department lead for website/digital content and social media strategy, while also performing a traditional public relations role for our sports teams on campus.
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Here’s some news on what our MA in WRD and MA in NMS graduates and faculty have been up to in the last five months… NMS Alumni Daisy Franco (2012) began a new job in May as Director of Public Relations and Marketing for the City Colleges of Chicago. Kim Galovich (2014) recently started a position at Digital Marketing for RXBAR, a Chicago start-up company that sells natural protein bars. She handles email marketing and online advertising and manages website content. Mike Garabedian (2015) has a new position as an Account Coordinator at Fishman Public Relations in Chicago and Northbrook,
Continue readingIn Winter Quarter 2016, the MA program in New Media Studies (NMS) will offer NMS 580: Markup and Text Encoding in the Humanities, a core course in the new certificate in Digital Humanities. Though the course has an NMS course number, the instructor, Prof. Antonio Ceraso, hopes it will also draw students from the MA in WRD and humanities disciplines such as English and history—all of whom can benefit from the new tools and perspectives the course offers.
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Graduate students in NMS or WRD: Have you done research in a graduate class related to digital technologies or pedagogy? Would you like to share that research with a wider audience? If so, consider presenting at the annual Computers and Writing Conference! This academic conference will happen from May 19-22 at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY. The theme for 2016 — Crossing Wires: Reaching Across Campus, Between Disciplines, and Into Communities — challenges presenters to consider how new media and digital technologies cross boundaries and expand horizons, in both scholarship and pedagogy.
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We are pleased to announce that this quarter’s guest speaker will be Annette Vee from the University of Pittsburgh. The event will be held Tuesday, October 13 from 4:20-5:50pm in the Scholar’s Lab on the first floor of the Richardson Library. She will be giving a talk called, “Coding for Everyone: What Does It Mean to Call Computer Programming a ‘Literacy’?”.
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We are excited to announce the three alumni speakers who will join us at the Spread the WoRD Conference on May 16! As panelists in a moderated discussion, Nicole Anderson, Liz Lane, and Adrienne Vitt will share about their time at DePaul and their work post-graduation. Nicole Anderson is a 2013 graduate of the MA in WRD program and a recipient of the Graduate Certificate in TESOL. She currently travels around the world as Associate Director of International Alumni Programs at the University of Chicago, and, before that, she applied her WRD knowledge developing curricula for non-profit professional organizations.
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In a job market where most job descriptions contain the phrase “strong writing skills,” what does it mean to be a good professional writer? This spring’s MA in WRD course, WRD 522: Writing in the Professions, will explore a variety of professional genres while also problematizing the concept of professional writing. The class is the first-ever online course offered by the MA in WRD program. Instead of weekly class sessions on campus, the course will include weekly writing deadlines, Google Hangouts and discussion forums to discuss readings, and online peer review.
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This quarter, we spoke with Nicole Anderson, an MA in WRD alum and a recipient of the Graduate Certificate in TESOL. Nicole works as the Associate Director of International Alumni Programs at the University of Chicago. She travels frequently, working with alumni communities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to build their networks and support the events they organize. We’re happy she took the time to share a little about her experiences!
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The WRD Department and department chair, Peter Vandenberg, were recently featured in a DePaul Insights article. In it, author Melissa Smith writes about how WRD focuses on the importance of critical thinking, communication, and interpersonal skills–all of which are vital in the professional world. To read more about how WRD is reframing the liberal arts, click here to access the article on page 9 of DePaul’s Insights.
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