Board Member Profile: Robin Snead

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Education

North Carolina State Univeristy; PhD.

Dr. Robin Snead currently serves as an At-Large CarolinasWPA board member in North Carolina. New to the organization, Robin says that given the current attitudes toward higher education, she hope to have CarolinasWPA advocate more publically for the importance of the group’s work. “What I most appreciate about the CarolinasWPA is the openness and collegiality I have found as a member, and I would like to see our reach extended to individuals from colleges and universities that are not currently represented,” says Robin.

 

Outside of CarolinasWPA, Robin works as a lecturer at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke. She is also conducting research on a project centered on multimodal composition, looking beyond first-year composition courses and genres of disciplinary writing, to the less-explored multimodality across academic disciplines. Robin and three of her colleagues have an article forthcoming in Across the Disciplines that reports and comments on survey results they’ve gathered on this topic. Robin is also interested in the intersection between writers and the technologies they use to compose, and how the interaction between writers and technologies affect composing processes.

 

 

Board Member Profile: Kevin Brock

Kevin-BrockKevin Brock

 

Education

Ph.D., North Carolina State University

 

Dr. Kevin Brock currently serves on the CarolinasWPA Board as the At-Large South Carolina Representative. New to the Board, Kevin has been in contact with the organization from several stances – as a NTT lecturer, graduate student, and now as a TT assistant professor. It is his goal to promote the CarolinasWPA mission of communication both among different institutions and among the different roles/groups within those institutions, particularly in South Carolina. Kevin hopes to continue to build on what his colleagues have worked to create, believing that CarolinasWPA and the WPAs, instructors, and graduate students of South Carolina schools have much to offer one another.

 

Kevin is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. Kevin’s primary research interest is studying software programming as a form of rhetorical communication. He studies the activity of programming, the code texts that activity produces, and how rhetoricians can help inform programming-related pedagogy by approaching it as a composing practice. In conjunction with this, Kevin also looks to how software developers can help us understand what programming shares and does not share with other kinds of composing practices.

 

“There’s a lot to love about composition and its various overlapping fields,” says Kevin.

 

In addition to his book project that explores the rhetorical nature of software development, Kevin is currently interested in digital rhetoric, multimodal composition, technical communication, professional writing, and writing program administration

 

 

Board Member Profile: Jessie Moore

Jessie-MooreJessie L. Moore

 

Education

Ph.D., 2004, Purdue University

M.A., 2001, Purdue University

B.A., 1999, University of Wyoming

 

Dr. Jessie Moore serves as the Web and List Manager for CarolinasWPA. In this role, Jessie’s goal is to help the organization extend the community of practice around writing program administration in the Carolinas. CarolinasWPA has two annual events that help to build this sense of community, but there are no sustained networking practices for staying connected throughout the year. As Web and List Manager, Jessie hopes to help the Board create structures and tools that members can use to collaborate and learn from each other in-between conferences.

 

Outside of CarolinasWPA, Jessie’s research interests include disciplinary research on writing practices and transdisciplinary research on learning, teaching, and faculty development. Her current research focuses on faculty change towards high-impact pedagogies, writers’ transfer of writing knowledge and practices, the writing lives of university students, and multi-institutional research strategies for the scholarship of teaching and learning. Jessie uses these often intersecting research threads to inform her teaching, program administration, and professional service.

 

Jessie is the Associate Director of the Center for Engaged Learning and an Associate Professor of Professional Writing and Rhetoric in the Department of English at Elon University. She also chairs the Communications Committee for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL).

 

Board Member Profile: Nancy Barendse

Nancy-BarendseNancy Barendse

 

Education

PhD., University of South Carolina

M.A., Clemson University

B.A., Auburn University

 

Dr. Nancy Barendse currently serves as Treasurer for CarolinasWPA. She is a Professor of English at Charleston Southern University. Nancy’s goal for CarolinasWPA is that the organization will continue to involve members such as herself, who teach at small schools that either lack or have underdeveloped writing programs within the English Department.

 

“I have found it invaluable to be able to talk with and learn from people who speak my language, people who share my view on writing,” says Nancy of CarolinasWPA.

 

Nancy’s research interests include digital and multi-modal rhetoric. She is also involved with the National Council of Teachers of English, Assembly for Literature for Adolescents, and Council of Writing Program Administrators. Nancy has had articles and reviews appear in the Journal of Teaching Writing, The SECOL Review and the Concise Dictionary of Literary Biography.

 

Board Member Profile: Rachel Spear

Rachel-SpearRachel Spear

 

Education

Ph.D., Louisiana State University

Ed.S., Louisiana State University

M.A., Louisiana State University

B.A., Millsaps College

 

Dr. Rachel N. Spear serves as an At-Large CarolinasWPA board member in South Carolina. Rachel describes CarolinasWPA as the “ideal organization for collaboration, connection, and community.” Her goal as one of the South Carolina representatives is to increase the presence and participation of SC writing faculty and administrators in the organization. She also wishes to strengthen the ease of communicating and working with others with like interests.

 

Rachel’s research interests include writing pedagogy and writing studies, with a focus that relies on interdisciplinary studies to investigate women’s life-writing post-trauma and the transformative benefit of writing one’s story. Her recent publications and conference presentations include “Let Me Tell You a Story’: On Teaching Trauma Narratives, Writing, and Healing” in Pedagogy; “Can’t We JUST Write!?: The Risks and Rewards of Using Mindfulness and Expressive Writing in Revision Workshops” at CCCC; and “Changing Rape Culture through Curriculum and Collaboration” at NeMLA.

 

In addition to her research and work with CarolinasWPA, Rachel is an Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of the Composition Program at Francis Marion University. She also serves as the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Board Representative for the Northeast Modern Language Association.

Board Member Profile: Collie Fulford

collie-fulford

Collie Fulford

 

Education

Ph.D., 2009, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

M.A., 2005, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

B.A., 2002, Keene State College

 

Collie Fulford is the President-Elect for CarolinasWPA.  She is an Assistant Professor of English composition and rhetoric in the Department of Language and Literature at North Carolina Central University where she directs First-Year Writing and chairs the writing concentration committee.

 

Collie is interested in increasing minority engagement in CarolinasWPA and diversifying the institutions that are involved in the organization. She feels that writing programs operate in highly complex organizations and are thus often sites of crisis and conflict. Collie believes this situational reality also means, however, that they can be sites of great creativity and collaboration.

 

“CarolinasWPA provides occasions for members to broach the most challenging aspects of teaching and program administration while tapping into our collective creativity, humor, and wisdom,” says Collie.

 

Her current research addresses minority education and writing program development. She also studies the rhetoric of higher education.  Her recent articles in IJSoTL, WPA, and Composition Studies pertain to writing program administration issues.

 

Board Member Profile: Chris Warnick

chris-warnickChris Warnick

Education

Ph.D., 2006, English, with a concentration in Composition, Literacy, Pedagogy, and Rhetoric, University of Pittsburgh

M.A., 1999, English, University of Pittsburgh

B.A., 1991, English, Ohio State University

 

Dr. Chris Warnick currently serves on the CarolinasWPA board as an At-Large South Carolina Representative. Chris’s goal for the organization is to actively uphold the legacy of mentorship and support established by previous CarolinasWPA members. His personal objective within the group is to introduce and engage more of his colleagues in South Carolina.

 

In addition to his work with CarolinasWPA, Chris serves as an Associate Professor of English and First-Year Writing Coordinator at the College of Charleston. He is also the Submissions Editor of the journal Literacy in Composition Studies.

 

Chris’s research interests largely involve student academic literacy. He has collaborated with other members of CarolinasWPA to analyze the writing and revision practices of undergraduate mathematics students. He is currently conducting a longitudinal study that analyzes how the College of Charleston’s First-Year Experience program impacts students’ general education coursework, their work in their majors, and their extracurricular experiences.

 

 

 

Board Member Profile: Paula Patch

Paula PatchPaula Patch

 

B.A., 1997, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

M.A., 2000, Eastern New Mexico University

 

Paula Patch currently serves as one of the At-Large North Carolina board members for CarolinasWPA, an organization that she describes as a family. It is her goal not only to foster this type of academic environment within CarolinasWPA, but also to provide the structure and leadership that will further this outcome. On a larger scale, Patch’s vision for the organization includes bringing in outside colleagues to the group’s conferences – such as Wildacres and Meeting in the Middle – to spread CWPA’s message. To Paula, this means that board members must be agents for change in the discipline and in their local situations. Specifically, Paula aspires for the organization to increase the number of members who represent community colleges, smaller universities, and HBCUs.

 

“In a word, advocacy is the vision and goal,” says Paula.

 

In addition to serving on the CarolinasWPA board, Paula is a Senior Lecturer in English at Elon University, where she coordinates the first-year writing program. In this role, Paula focuses on information literacy, particularly looking at how strong library-writing program partnerships can affect first-year students’ information literacy behaviors and attitudes. She also studies the role of non-tenure track faculty in academic departments and programs. Paula is interested in two specific questions: What are the experiences, situations, and perceptions of permanent non-tenure track faculty? And, how do permanent non-tenure faculty lines trouble the idea of tiered or tracked faculty positions?

 

Paula is currently working with a colleague on an internal grant-funded project to revamp the grammar proficiency test and preparation for students matriculating into Elon’s School of Education. She also conducts local research on a non-credit writing enrichment seminar for high school juniors in Alamance County.

Board Member Profile: Patrick Bahls

Patrick BahlsPatrick Bahls

 

Education

B.S., 1998, University of Denver

M.S., 2000, Vanderbilt University

Ph.D., 2002, Vanderbilt University

 

 

Dr. Patrick Bahls currently serves as Secretary for CarolinasWPA. It is Patrick’s goal to spread the organization’s involvement, actively engaging the faculty and staff of more institutions, particularly those at two-year colleges. He envisions CarolinasWPA collaborating more with leaders of writing programs with WAC/WID components that involve faculty from across the disciplines in leadership roles.

 

Patrick’s research interests are how composition and rhetoric focus on writing in the disciplines (with emphasis on STEM disciplines), writing across the curriculum, writing to learn, and writing program development.

 

In addition to his involvement with CarolinasWPA, Patrick is an Associate Professor of Mathematics and the Honors Program Director at the University of North Carolina – Asheville. Patrick ‘s book, Student Writing in the Quantitative Disciplines: A Guide for College Faculty, offers a pedagogy of writing within mathematics disciplines.

Board Member Profile: Anthony Atkins

Tony AtkinsAnthony Atkins

Education

Ph.D., Ball State University
M.A., East Carolina University
B.A., East Carolina University

 

 

As immediate past-president, Dr. Tony Atkins is an active member within CarolinasWPA. His vision for the organization is that it will ideally continue to grow and  support WPAs in the Carolinas, seeking to endorse the national goals and mission of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. “We seek to build community among those who teach writing from a myriad of perspectives,” says Atkins.

 

Tony’s current research interests include Technologies of Composing, Rhetorical Theory, Composition Theory, Writing Program Administration, Professional Writing, Document Design, and most recently the Rhetoric of Search Engine Optimization.

 

Beyond CarolinasWPA, Tony is currently an associate professor of English at University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he focuses on first-year writing, WPA, and the field of rhetoric and composition. Tony has also published on the effects of social media on business communications.