Here’s an update on what some of our MA in NMS and MA in WRD students, graduates, and faculty members have been up to in the last six months!
MA in NMS Students and Alumni
MA in NMS student Nicole Hack was featured in a Continental Tire feature this year (see 30-second clip and long-form content feature), which highlighted her experiences as a Chicago Fire supporter.
Nicolas Hinternesch (2017) recently moved to London/UK in April for his role as a Digital Analytics Consultant at AT Internet. He mainly works with the BBC and other UK- and US clients to manage the full cycle of their digital analytics. On the side, he has programmed and released a new Alexa skill to the Amazon skill store, is working on his newest music EP, and will be speaking at the Symposium of the Digital Analytics Association in Philadelphia in October.
Lisa Wieczorek (2015) began working as a full-time freelance designer in April 2018 — a goal she’s worked toward over the past few years!
Lindsay Green (2014) successfully coordinated the SMPS Chicago Excellence in Marketing Awards as a member of the chapter’s Professional Development Committee for the second year in a row.
Kevin Smith (2012) received his PhD in English (Rhetoric and Composition) from Northeastern University in May 2018, and he recently started a position at the University of Virginia as an Assistant Professor in the English Department. Finally–and most importantly–his wife Stephanie gave birth to daughter Ruby in January.
Susanna Ludwig (2012) works as an art director at Imagination Agency in Fulton Market. She and husband Tim welcomed daughter Adelaide on June 25.
MA in WRD Students and Alumni
Krissy Wilson (2018) was promoted to Senior Learning Designer, Assessment in the Distance Learning Department at the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern University. She and her husband Wesley welcomed a daughter, Robin, in September.
Hannah Colwill (2018) accepted a tech writer position at Relativity after graduation.
Rachel Landgraf (2017) works at United Airlines as Production Coordinator – Employee Digital Engagement. She is part of the corporate communications department and helps produce content for the employee intranet website.
Katherine Martin (2016) was admitted to DePaul’s Curriculum Studies doctoral program in the College of Education, starting this fall.
Molly Rentscher (2015) began a new position as Graduate Writing Support Coordinator at University of the Pacific. She supports graduate student writers and faculty members across Pacific’s three campuses and is overseeing the development of a new graduate writing center at Pacific’s Sacramento campus. This summer, Molly presented at the 2018 Symposium on Second Language Writing (SSLW) conference in Vancouver, with a talk titled, “Portrait of the L2 Writer as a Writing Center Visitor.”
Courtney Griffin (2013) began DePaul’s Education Leadership EdD program this spring.
Chad Seader (2013) started his first tenure-track faculty position this semester as an assistant professor of English at William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa. At WPU, Chad teaches writing and communications courses within the Leadership Core and Master of Business Leadership program.
Liz Lane (2012), now an Assistant Professor at the University of Memphis, was appointed as Principal Editor of Spark: a 4C4Equality Journal, to be published under New City Community Press/Writing and Working for Change series. Liz also presented a paper and experience report at SIGDOC 2018 in Milwaukee, WI, “Iteration for Impact: Exploring Design Thinking & Designing for Social Change in a Client Project.” In May 2018, with Don Unger, she published “Considering Global Communication and Usability as Networked Engagement: Lessons from 4C4Equality” in Thinking Globally, Composing Locally: Applications for International Communication Exchange. (Eds. Kirk St. Amant and Rich Rice. Utah State University Press).
BA/MA student Maddy Crozier was awarded the WPA-GO travel grant for the 2018 Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) conference in Sacramento, CA. Maddy also presented on a panel with Department Chair Peter Vandenberg and Prof. Erin Workman. The panel was called “Innovating through Institutional Ethnography: What, where, and How Writing Means in Our University.” Maddy’s presentation focused on findings from her pilot project, an institutional ethnography of the writing center, for which she interviewed three administrators, surveyed peer writing tutors, and conducted document-based interviews with peer writing tutors.
MA in WRD student Channing Tabb and MA in NMS student Nicole Hack were awarded Community- and Project-based Internship Scholarships to support their summer and fall internships at Curt’s Cafe and the Heart of the City Sports, respectively.
Students from Prof. Dush’s spring quarter WRD 526: Grant and Proposal Writing course have had several conference proposals accepted and grants funded, including Isaac Ewuoso (accepted presentation proposal for the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication), Conrad Bielic (accepted presentation proposal for the 2018 National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing), and Ashnar Maita (MA in International Studies) ($2000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust to the Iraqi Mutual Aid Society).
WRD Faculty
Prof. Julie Bokser presented a talk, “Reinventing Feminist Rhetoric: Ethical Historiography and Progressive Bias,” at the Rhetoric Society of America in Minneapolis, this past June. She is on her research leave this quarter, and is spending lots of time in archives studying a small group of 19th-century professional women in Chicago.
Prof. Antonio Ceraso and Prof. Lisa Dush co-presented a talk in August entitled, “Leveraging Digital Humanities Practices to Teach Structured Authoring in Technical and Professional Communication.” They delivered this talk at the Special Information Group on Design of Communication (SIGDOC) conference in Milwaukee, WI.
Prof. Pete Vandenberg gave a talk at the Conference of Writing Program Administrators summer meeting in Sacramento in July. He was a member of a panel on institutional ethnography and writing at DePaul with Professor Erin Workman and BA/MA student Madeline Crozier.
Prof. Jason Schneider’s article, “Learning How to Support Multilingual Writers: A Framework for Faculty Education,” was published in the spring issue of the journal Pedagogy. In May, Jason co-presented with Associate Professor Li Jin of Modern Languages in Philadelphia at the annual convention of NAFSA, the Association of International Educators. Their presentation, “Teaching in the Global Classroom: A Study on Faculty Perspectives,” was well-received and was the subject of an article in Inside Higher Ed.
Prof. Erin Workman has been accepted for publication in WAC Journal, forthcoming: Kathleen Blake Yancey, Matthew Davis, Liane Roberston, Kara Taczak, and Erin Workman. “Writing across College: Key Terms and Multiples Contexts as Factors Promoting Transfer of Writing Knowledge and Practice.” She presented at the 7th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference in Oxford, Ohio with a presentation titled “Mapping Students’ Learning Journeys: Visualizing and Transferring Conceptual Writing Knowledge across Contexts.” She presented in a group at International Writing across the Curriculum (IWAC) conference in Auburn, AL with a presentation titled “Exploring Teaching for Transfer Across Eight Research Sites.” She also attended the 2018 Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Composition Research.