News and Updates

News & Updates

WRD students, alumni, and faculty share their recent professional and academic achievements.

Students & Alumni

Sarah Brown (MA in WRD 2010) presented “The Girl Scout Career Model: Open Badging and Representations of Learning” at CCCC in Indianapolis, Indiana in March.

Eric Iberri (MA in WRD 2010) recently began working as a Proposal Editor for SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA.

Stephanie Irvine (MA in WRD 2011) quit her full-time marketing job in February to pursue an independent writing career.

Chris Jones (MA in NMS 2011) began a new job as Director of Web Communications at North Central College in Naperville, IL in May.

Molly Koeneman (MA in NMS) received a promotion from eMedia Manager to Digital Manager at MediaTec Publishing and  successfully project-managed the migration of her first website, CLOmedia.com, a five-year-old magazine website.

Kim Kotty (MA in WRD 2011) completed a presentation with a colleague in November at the IATE annual conference entitled “Finding the Bliss of Writing Through The Student-Led Writing Centers” and another presentation in February at the Celebrating Language Arts Institute Day called “Utilizing Student-Led Writing Centers to Under-gird the Work of Classroom Teachers.”

Faculty

Professor Laurie Alfaro received her Doctor of Education degree from Argosy University.

Professor Julie Bokser has been awarded the 2014 Thomas and Carol Dammrich Faculty Innovation Award.

Professor Matthew Crain (MA in NMS 2007) has accepted full-time tenure track position at Queens College in New York.

Professor Matthew Fledderjohann has accepted a position as a Graduate Assistant in UW-Madison’s English Department and will begin his PhD in Composition and Rhetoric in August.

Professor Joseph Klein (MA in WRD 2013) has accepted a full-time tenure track position at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan.

Professor Stephen Swain presented a talk entitled “Exhuasted Thread: A Commentary on Fiction’s Progression in Pynchon, Barth, and David Foster Wallace” at the David Foster Wallace Conference at Illinois State University in May.

Professor Pete Vandenberg, as President of the Independent Writing Departments and Programs Association (IWDPA), wrote the successful application for the IWDPA’s acceptance—announced in April of this year—as a Standing Group of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Professor Pete Vandenberg led a pre-conference workshop at the Conference on College Composition and Communication on March 19 in Indianapolis entitled “Independent Writing Units: Exploring Your Options.”