Our Alumni

At Michigan, we emphasize student professional development, and to date 100% of our alumni who have sought tenure track academic positions have found placement. Our graduates work at a wide range of institutions, small and large, public and private, teaching- and research-oriented. We are proud of our graduates and the cutting-edge research and inspired teaching they do.

Giving to English and Education student support click here or to support the Program click here.

2021-2025

Carlina Duan ’24, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

  • Revivifying Attention: The Generative Practices of Contemporary A/PIA Documentary Poets

Jason Godfrey ’24, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

  • Prompt and Circumstance: Investigating the Link between College-level Writing and Common Postsecondary Policy Levers

Sarah Hughes ’24, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • Women’s Discursive Practices for Reclaiming Space in Online Gaming Ecologies

Kathryn Van Zanen ’24,

  • Rhetoric and Networked Religious Identity: Raised-Evangelical Social Media Users Writing Back in 2020

Elizabeth (Adelay) Witherite, ’24, Teaching college writing in Southeast Michigan

  • First-Year Writing Students’ Emotioned Experiences, Interpretations, and Responses to Discourses of Difference

Michael Hoffman ’23, Washtenaw International High School and Middle Academy in Ypsilanti, MI

  • Trained to Care: The Role of Obligation in Military Experience

Andrew Moos ’23, Colby College, Waterville, ME

  • The Language Ideologies of White First-Year Composition Instructors: Exploring Intersections between Writing Pedagogy, Attitudes toward Language, and White Identity

Megan Garver ’23, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • The Art and Practice of Developing an Anxiety and Depression Literacy

Kendon Smith “23, Madonna University, Livonia, MI

  • Characterizations of Readers in College Composition Courses: Language Ideologies and Inequitable Shifts in the Communicative Burden

Jathan Day ’22, University of Alaska – Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska

  • Canvas as a Networked Extension of the Writing Classroom

Ruth Li ’22, Alfaisal University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  • An Examination of Nuance in Students’ Literary Interpretive Writing

Naitnaphit Limlamai ’22, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

  • Constructions and Enactments of Justice in Secondary English Methods and Student Teaching Spaces

Michelle Sprouse ’22, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH

  • Social Annotation in First-Year Composition

Kelly Wheeler, ’22, Curry College, Boston, MA

  • Silence, Speech, and Support: Community Response to Swastika Hate Acts and the Taxonomy of a Rhetorical Genre

Kristin vanEyk ’21, Hope College, Grand Rapids, MI

  • Writing Difference: Student Ideologies and Translingual Possibilities

2016-2020

Ryan McCarty ’20, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • Towards a Theory and Practice of Translingual Transfer: A Study of 6 International Undergraduate Students

Adrienne Raw ’20, The State University of New York – Cortland, Cortland, NY

  • Mediating and Mediated: Fandom Discussion, Knowledge-Making, and the (Re)Shaping of Fannish Realities

Elizabeth Tacke ’20,  Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL

  • Rhetorics of Masking: Negotiating Disclosures of Disability and Trauma

Emily Mullas Wilson ’19, Alfaisal University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  • “Restorying in the Discourses and Literacies of Military-Connected Students“

James Watson Hammond ’19, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, currently at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI

  • “Composing Progress in the United States: Race Science, Social Justice, and the Rhetorics of Writing Assessment, 1845-1859”

Molly Brianna Parsons ’19, Keene State College, Keene, NH

  • “The Pedagogical Ethic: A Qualitative Study of Undergraduate Writing Consultant Practice”

Ann Carroll Burke ’18, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

  • “Understanding College-bound Students’ Perceived Preparedness and Expectations for College-level Writing”

Merideth Marie Garcia ’18, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse, WI

  • “Networked Ethics: A Qualitative Study of Digital Device Use in Two High School ELA Classrooms”

Elizabeth Bachrach Hutton ’18, Miami University, Oxford, OH

  • “Textual Transactions: Recontextualizing Louise Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory for the College Writing Classroom”

Benjamin Keating ’18, Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, NC, currently at Boston University, Boston, MA

  • “Ideologies of Language, Authority, and Disability in College Writing Peer Review”

Anna Victoria Knutson ’18,  Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA

  • “That’s Just a Different Brain’: Feminist College Students’ Writing Knowledge Transfer Across Academic and Social Media Domains”

Bonnie Tucker ’18, The University of Chicago

  • “For-Profit Colleges as Literacy Sponsors: A Turn to Students’ Voices”

Gail R. Gibson ’17, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • “Efficiency, Correctness, and the Authority of Automation: Technology in College Basic Writing Instruction”

Christopher Michael Parsons ’17, Keene State College, Keene, NH

  • “Ideologies about Gender and Literacy in the Academic Lives of Young Men: A Qualitative Study in Three High School English Classrooms”

Aubrey Schiavone ’17, University of Denver, Denver, CO, currently a Senior UX Design Researcher at Optum, part of the UnitedHealth Group

  • “Understanding the Literacies of Working Class First-Generation College Students”

Rebecca Manery  ’16, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, currently Hopwood Program Manager, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

  • “The Education of the Creative Writing Teacher: A Study of Conceptions of Creative Writing Pedagogy in Higher Education”

Ruth Anna Spooner ’16, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY

  • “Languages, Literacies, and Translations: Examining Deaf Students’ Language Ideologies through English-to-ASL Translations of Literature”

Joanna Want ’16, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

  • “Strangers at the Table: Student Veterans, Writing Pedagogy, and the Possibility of Hospitality in the College Composition Classroom”

2011-2015

Brett Griffiths ’15, Macomb Community College, Warren, MI, currently at Schoolcraft, Livonia, MI

  • “This is My Profession:” How Notions of Teaching Enable and Constrain Autonomy of Two-Year College Writing Instructors”

Melody Pugh ’15, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Spring, CO

  • “An Investigation of Transfer in the Literacy Practices of Religiously Engaged Christian College Students”

Sarah Swofford ’15, University of South Carolina-Beaufort, Beaufort, SC

  • “Linguistic and Rhetorical Ideologies in the Transition to College Writing: A Case Study of Southern Students”

Justine A. (Neiderhiser) Post ’15, Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH, currently at Learning Designer at Root, a part of Accenture

  • “Beyond the Written Comment: A Qualitative Case Study Exploring Student and Instructor Response to Feedback in the First-Year Writing Classroom”

Danielle Lillge ’15, Illinois State University, Normal, IL

  • “When Does Literacy Professional Development Work? Understanding How Instructors Learn to Teach Writing in their Disciplinary Classrooms”

Elizabeth Homan ’14, Waltham Public Schools, Waltham, MA

  • “Digital Pedagogies and Teacher Networks:  How Teachers’ Professional Learning and Interpersonal Relationships Shape Classroom Digital Practices”

Steven Engel, ’14, Defiance College, Defiance, OH

  • “In Your Own Words: Ideological Dilemmas in English Teachers’ Talk about Plagiarism”

Anne Porter, ’14, Alma College, Alma, MI, currently at Michigan State University, Lansing, MI

  • “Distributed Agency and the Rhetorical Work of Essay Contests”

Christine Toth, ’14, University of Utah, UT

  • “Locally Responsive Composition Pedagogy: A Tribal College Case Study”

Crystal VanKooten, ’14, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, Currently at Michigan State University, Lansing, MI

  • “Developing Meta-Awareness about Composition through New Media in the First-Year Writing Classroom”

Monroe Moody, ’13, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  •  “Affecting Genre: Women’s Participation with Popular Romance Fiction”

Christopher Gerben, ’12, St. Edward’s University, Austin, TX, currently at New York University – School of Professional Studies, NYC, NY, and Omobono, content strategist, Chicago, IL

  • “Expanding Conversations: Cultivating an Analytical Approach to Collaborative Composition in Social Online Spaces”

Benjamin Gunsberg, ’12, Utah State, Logan, UT

  • “Terms of Uncertainty: Technological Change and Writing in the Digital Age”

Carlton “Zak” Lancaster, ’12, Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, NC

  • “Stance and Reader Positioning in Upper-Level Student Writing in Political Theory and Economics”

Donna Scheidt, ’12, High Point University, High Point, NC

  • “Using Narrative Jurisprudence to Develop a Narrative Approach to Deliberative Ethical Argument in Composition”

Laura Aull, ’11, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • “Forgotten Genres: The Editorial Apparatus of American Anthologies and Composition Textbooks”

Bethany Davila, ’11, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

  • “Enduring Patterns: Standard Language and Privileged Identities in the Writing Classroom”

Melinda McBee Orzulak, ’11, Bradley University, Peoria, IL

  • “Understanding Language to Support Equitable Teaching: How Beginning English Teachers Engage Complexity, Negotiate Dilemmas, and Avoid Deficit Ideologies”

Randal Pinder, ’11, College of The Bahamas, currently retired

  • “Adult Learners’ Understandings and Expectations of Literacy and Their Impact on Participation in Adult Literacy Programs”

Hannah Dickinson, ’11, Hobart and Smith, Geneva, NY

  • “Composing Violence: Student Talk, University Discourse, and the Politics of Witnessing”

Moisés D. Perales Escudero, ’11, Universidad de Quintana Roo in Chetumal

  • “Teaching and Learning Critical Reading with Transnational Texts at a Mexican University: An Emergentist Cast Study”

2006-2010

Ebony E. Thomas, ’10, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, currently at the Marsal Family School, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

  • “We’re Saying the Same Thing”: How English Teachers Negotiated Solidarity Identity and Ethics Through Talk and Interaction”

Staci Shultz, ’10, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, NY

  • “Exploring Literacy Sponsorship in the Digital Extracurriculum: How Students’ Participation in Fan Fiction Sites can Inform Composition Pedagogy”

Amy Carpenter Ford, ’10, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI

  • “Constructing Authority across Difference A White Teacher Signifyin(g) with African American Students in a High School English Classroom”

Michael Thomson Bunn, ’10, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

  • “Reconceptualizing the Role of Reading in Composition Studies”

Heather Thomson Bunn, ’09, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA

  • “When God’s Word Isn’t Good Enough: Exploring Christian Discourses in the College Composition Classroom”

James Beitler, ’09, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL

  • “Rhetorics of Interdependence: Composing the Ethos of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission”

Jennifer Buehler, ’09, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO

  • “Words Matter: The Role of Discourse in Creating, Sustaining, and Changing School Culture”

David W. Brown, ’08, Marymount University, Arlington, VA, currently at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

  • “Curricular Approaches to Linguistic Diversity: Code-Switching, Register-Shifting and Academic Language”

Christian Michael Dallavis, ’08, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IL, currently at Leadership Programs UND Alliance for Catholic Education, South Bend, IN

  • “Extending Theories of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Urban Catholic Schools and Immigrant Communities”

Kelly Sassi, ’08, North Dakota State, Fargo, ND, currently at Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI

  • Rhetorics of Authority, Space, Friendship, and Race: A Qualitative Study of the Culturally Responsive Teaching of Native American Literatures

Matthew Nelson, ’08, Francis Marion University, St. Florence, SC

  • “What Would You Advise Us to Do?”: Status, Knowledge, and Asymmetry in Cross-Level Interactions among Teachers of Writing.”

Paul Feigenbaum, ’08, Florida International University, Miami, FL, currently at University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY

  • “Community Action: A Framework for Egalitarian, Reciprocal Community Engagement in the Field of Rhetoric and Composition”

Jill Lamberton, ’07, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN

  • “Claiming an Education: The Transatlantic Performance and Circulation of Intellectual Identities in College Women’s Writing, 1870-1900”

Lindsay Ellis, ’06, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI

  • “Perspectives on Argumentation, Education, and Composition from the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, 1895-1916”

Zandra Jordan, ’06, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

  • “It’s Just Certain Words”:  Faith-Based Initiatives and the Challenge of Definition in the Suburban African American Church”

Laura Vanderploeg, ’06, Manager of Professional Development, Seattle Public Schools, Seattle, WA

  • “Reading Race:  A Study of Critical Literacy and Racial Identity in an English Language Arts Classroom”

2001-2005

Suzanne Spring, ’05, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY

  • “Forming Letters: Mount Holyoke, Emily Dickinson, and Nineteenth-Century Epistolary Compositions”

Rebecca Ingalls, ’05, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, currently a RN and nurse midwifery

  • “Taking a Page from Their Books:  Negotiating Containment and Resuscitating Rhetoric in Writing Across Academic and Spoken-Word Genres”

Shari Steadman, ’04, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, retired

  • “Becoming University Supervisors:  Constructing Practices and Identities”

Victoria Haviland, ’04, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • “Things Get Glossed Over”:  Whiteness and Multicultural Education

Steven Salchak, ’03, George Washington University, Washington, DC

  • “Developing a Land Ethic for Ecocomposition Theory and Pedagogy:  A Place-Based Approach to Teaching Critical and Ecological Literacies as Part of Academic Literacy”

Shawn Christian, ’03, Florida International University, Miami, FL

  • “‘We Do Not Teach Literature, We are Taught by Literature’: Building African American Literature During the New Negro Renaissance”

Jeff Buchanan, ’02, Youngstown State, Youngstown, OH, retired

  • “Telling Theory Making Story:  An Institutional Autobiography”

Tim Murnen, ’02, Bowling Green University, OH

  • “Constructing Authorship in the Composition Classroom:  An Ethnographic Approach”

Allan Cook, ’02, Marygrove College, Detroit, MI, currently East Carolina University

  • “Communicative Interaction in the Dialogic Classroom: Identifying and Accommodating Impediments to Dialogue”

Rafael Heller, ’02, President, Blue Pencil Consulting

  • “Small Change: Teaching, Writing, and the Invention of Motives”

Rona Kaufman, ’02, Pacific Lutheran, Tacoma, WA

  • “Reading Materials:  Composing Literacy Practices In and Out of School”

 1996-2000

Anne Reeves, ’00, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA

  • “Case Study of High School Students’ Reading”

Jennifer Sinor, ’00, Utah State University, Logan, UT

  • “Making Ordinary Writing:  One Woman’s Diary”

Laura Roop, ’99, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, retired

  • “Revising Texts, Revising Lives, Revising Cultures:  Teacher-Leaders Exercising Agency in Two Learning Communities”

James Inman, ’99, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

  • “The Cyborg Turn:  Ontology, Computer Literacy, and the Future”

Margaret Willard Traub, ’98, University Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, retired

  • “Interanimating Voices: Theorizing the Turn Toward Reflective Writing in the Academy”

Anne Berggren, ’98, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, retired

  • “Nouseled” in Books: Women’s Stories of Reading”

Carla Verderame, ’98, West Chester University, West Chester, PA

  • “Making Violence in Classrooms Visible Through the Stories of Flannery O’Connor”

Aaron Schutz, ’98, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI

  • “Practices of Agency in Education”

Roberta Herter, ’98, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA

  • “Conflicting Interests:  Critical Theory Inside Out”

Renee Moreno, ’98, Cal State – Northbridge, Northridge, CA

  • “Re-Membering” The Body:  Pain in Collective Memory and Storytelling”

Alisea McLeod, ’98, Rust College. Holly Springs, MS

  • “Living Detroit (On The Edge of Disorder):  Time and Space in The Twentieth Century”

Morris Young, ’97,  University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI  

  • “Literacy, Legitimacy, and the Composing of Asian American Citizenship”

Elizabeth Masciale, ’96, Millersville College, Millersville, PA

  • “Discourses of Pedagogy:  Composing Portfolios, Students, and Teachers”

Deborah Minter, ’96, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

  • “Writing (To) Work: Metaphors of Fitness in Contemporary Arguments about Literacy and Work”

Todd DeStigter, ’96, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

  • “Los Olvidados:  Literacy, Ethnography, and the Forgotten Students of Addison High”

1988-1995

Emily Nye, ’95, California State University, East Bay

  • “The More I Tell My Story”: Writing as Healing at an HIV Clinic”

Randall Roorda, ’95, Kentucky University

  • “Dramas of Solitude: Narratives of Retreat in American Nature Writing”

Chet Breed, ’94, Northeast Missouri State

  • “Agnes Repplier, American Essayist: The Force of Character, The Consolation of Civility”

Sarah Robbins, ’93, Texas Christian University

  • “Domestic Didactics: Nineteenth-Century American Literary Pedagogy by Barbauld, Stowe and Addams”

Tom Philion, ’93, Roosevelt University at Chicago

  • “Collaborative Moments: An Account of Research at the Dewey Center for Urban Education, James Couzens (Community) School”

Michael McClure, ’93, Oglethorpe University

  • Student Fictions: Sources of Significance in the Teaching of Composition.

Colleen Fairbanks, ’92, University of Texas at Austin

William Rice, ’91, National Endowment for the Humanities, deceased

Virginia Purvis-Smith, ’91, Cary Presbyterian Church

Margaret Marshall, ‘91, University of Miami

David Lardner, ’91, Cleveland State University

Kathleen Dixon, ’91, University of North Dakota

David Schaafsma, ’90, University of Illinois (Chicago)

Cathy Fleischer, ’90, Eastern Michigan University

Raouf Mama, ’90, Eastern Connecticut State University

Cheryl Cassidy, ’88, Eastern Michigan University

Stephen Bernhardt, ’81, University of Delaware, retired