Associate Professor
Director, Ott Memorial Writing Center
I never imagined I'd be a writing center director, and I never
imagined that I'd love it as much as I do. My dissertation, which
I wrote several years after starting to work full-time at Marquette,
is on James Joyce's Ulysses. But as the writing
center grew, it needed a full-time director and as it added peer
tutors, I began to see my life taking a new direction.
I co-authored The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring
with Neal Lerner because I needed this book in the
course that trains tutors. It's now in a second edition and has
pictures of Marquette tutors on its cover. I've been engaged in
a research project into the long- and short-term effects of tutoring
and tutor training on the tutors themselves, and the responses
to a questionnaire sent out in pilot form have been affirming
of what I think a Marquette education should give to students.
As president of The International Writing Centers Association,
2001-2003, I fostered and then co-chaired (twice) a now-annual
Writing Center Summer Institute for directors and other professionals,
a week-long experience of intense learning and mentoring with
leaders from various types of institutions.
I've published articles on feminism and pedagogy, electronic
learning, and peer tutoring along with the co-edited Writing
Center Research: Extending the Conversation , the International
Writing Centers Association selection for best book of 2002. I've
published on James Joyce: a biography of James Joyce that functioned
as the official biography in the Press Kit for Bloomsday 2004
in Dublin, and Recent Criticism Of James Joyce's Ulysses
(co-authored with Michael Patrick
Gillespie) (2000).
I've enjoyed my work with my colleagues from across the curriculum
on writing initiatives. A grant from the National Science Foundation
is funding a project to include more writing in the physics labs,
and I've enjoyed working with law, business, history, and education
professors as they work with their graduate and undergraduate
students on better writing within their disciplines.
Teaching Fields
- Twentieth Century Studies
- Rhetoric and Composition
- Technology and Pedagogy
- Writing Centers
Office
Location & Contact
Office
Hours
- FALL 2008
- MF 10:00-10:50
- Wed 1:00-2:00
Teaching
Schedule
- FALL 2008
- 192/1001 MWF 11:00-11:50
- 192/4001 F 12:00-12:50
Research Interests
- Writing Center Administration
- Peer Tutoring
- James Joyce
Selected Publications
- Recent Criticism Of James Joyce's Ulysses. Co-authored with Michael Patrick Gillespie, 2000.
- Writing Center Research: Extending the Conversation, 2002.
- The Allyn Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Co-authored with Neal Lerner, 2003.
Honors/Awards
• International Writing Centers Association selection for best book of 2002
(for Writing Center Research: Extending the Conversation)
