WRD Speaker Series – Dr. Chris Thaiss

The department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse at DePaul University is pleased to welcome Dr. Chris Thaiss as the spring quarter WRD Speaker Series presenter. On Wednesday, April 16th, Dr. Thaiss will give his talk “Writing Programs Worldwide.”   Dr. Chris Thaiss is Clark Kerr Presidential Chair and Professor in the University Writing Program (UWP) of the University of California at Davis. A member of the Language, Literacy, and Culture Graduate Group at UCD, he also serves as Principal Investigator of the Area 3 Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project.

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News and Updates

Alumni and Faculty News

  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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WRD 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.

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Content 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.

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WRD 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.”

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WRD 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

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DePaul 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.

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Discover 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. 

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Q: 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.

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