CLA: Department of Writing Studies

Professors Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch and Ann Hill Duin, along with Kathleen Hanson (Journalism) and Celina Byers (CLA-OIT) had their E Portfolio proposal funded by the Provost's eLearning initiative.

They proposed the addition of an EPortfolio 2.0 to the curriculum in the Journalism Bachelor of Arts program and the Writing Studies / Technical Communication Bachelor of Science program. "The EPortfolio 2.0 program will allow all participating students to create a portfolio of finished work that demonstrates key abilities and activities critical to their respective major programs of study. This dynamic "2.0" version of EPortfolios will also include unique articulation of a Personal Learning Network (PLN), or arrays of people and social networking tools that connect students with information, knowledge and perspectives that enrich their undergraduate educations across and beyond the curriculum."

Posted by Shannon at 10:58 AM | Permalink

Congrats to Mary Schuster and Jessica Reyman for winning the 2013 CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Award in the category of Best Original Collection of Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication for "Special Issue: Technical Communication and the Law" in Technical Communication Quarterly. Jessica and Mary edited this collection for the journal.

Posted by Shannon at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Congratulations to the 2011-12 winners of the Coaxley Ames Writing Excellence Award, Phillip Stubbs and Frank Liang. Both Phillip and Frank are new S&TC majors, and Frank is a double major in English. The Coaxley Ames Award is for students interested in improving their writing through advanced study. This award is made possible by a generous donation from the Coaxley Ames family, who support improvement in student writing at the University of Minnesota.

Posted by Shannon at 9:34 AM | Permalink

At the annual Computers and Writing conference, recently held in Raleigh, North Carolina, Professor Christina Haas received the Ellen Nold award for best article on computers and writing, published in the journal Research in the Teaching of English.

Posted by Shannon at 2:12 PM | Permalink

Bernadette Longo has been awarded a 2012 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) History Committee Fellowship to continue developing a biography of computer pioneer and ACM founder Edmund Berkeley. She plans to have the manuscript completed by the end of the year.

Congratulations Bernadette!

Posted by Shannon at 4:05 PM | Permalink

Congratulations to Professor Carol Berkenkotter, Associate Professor Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and Professor Elaine Tarone (SLS, CARLA); each recently received a University of Minnesota Imagine Fund Grant:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/enews/2012/02/accolades-february-2-2012.html

Carol Berkenkotter: "Symptoms in Search of a Concept in a Victorian Asylum: Three Case Histories."
Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch: "Writing Assessment of Student Research Reports in WRIT 3562W, Technical and Professional Writing."
Elaine Tarone: "A research agenda on second language learning by pre-literate adults."

Posted by Shannon at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Congratulations to Writing Studies staff member extraordinaire Shannon Klug, who has been selected to receive a CLA Outstanding Service Award for 2010-11. The award will be presented at the CLA Staff Appreciation Ceremony on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., in Memorial Hall at the McNamara Alumni Center on the Minneapolis campus. Faculty, staff, students, friends, and alumni are most welcome to attend!

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Elaine Tarone (Professor of Second Language Studies, Director of CARLA) is the recipient of the American Association for Applied Linguistics' Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award for 2012. She will receive the award on the opening day of the 2012 AAAL conference in Boston in March and have the opportunity to deliver the DSSA special lecture. Elaine will also be a visiting professor teaching graduate courses at the University of Vienna in May-June 2012.

Congratulations Elaine!

Posted by Shannon at 8:36 AM | Permalink

Kristin O'Connor, a junior in the Scientific and Technical Communication major in Writing Studies, has been chosen as this year's recipient of the Victoria Mikelonis Memorial Award. Kristin is interested in technical writing, usability, and editing, and she will be studying abroad next year. This award offers a $200 award every year to an exceptional undergraduate student whose academic pursuits reflect a commitment to scientific and technical communication, rhetorical studies, and/or intercultural communication. (Suggested uses are books and a membership in the STC student chapter.) The award is presented in recognition of Professor Mikelonis's leadership, commitment, and her tremendous contributions to the University of Minnesota with the hope that the student will continue to build on Professor Mikelonis's work.

Congratulations, Kristin!

Posted by Shannon at 1:29 PM | Permalink

Congratulations to the recipients of the Coaxley Ames Writing Excellence Award! The award recognizes excellent writing in 1xxx-level courses and 3xxx-/4xxx-level courses. We had many excellent submissions, and four awards were granted:

First place, 1xxx-level writing (cash award of $100): Andrea Daughtery, "Seventeen: Impact and Influence," WRIT 1301 University Writing, Instructor Timothy Olekskiak

Second place, 1xxx-level writing (cash award of $50): Alison Seacord, "Why We Should Look," WRIT 1301 University Writing, Instructor Joe Moses

First place, 3xxx/4xxx-level writing (cash award of $100): Micah Sandberg-Spieler, "Social Media Strategy for The Cedar," WRIT 3562W, Instructor Joe Holt

Second place, 3xxx/4xxx-level writing (cash award of $50): Jennifer Nicklay, "Consultant Guilt in the Writing Center Community," WRIT 3751W, Instructor Kirsten Jamsen

Their papers are available for viewing as PDFs at the links above. Congratulations to our winners!

Posted by Shannon at 11:33 AM | Permalink

We are pleased to announce the Coaxley Ames Writing Excellence Award for undergraduate writing. This award is made possible by a generous donation from the Coaxley Ames family to recognize writing in higher education. The Department of Writing Studies will offer two $100 awards each year: one award in First-Year Writing, and one award in a 3xxx or 4xxx level course. Nominations can be made by students or by instructors, and the deadline is January 4, 2011.

More details about eligibility, criteria, and deadlines for the Coaxley Ames Writing Excellence Award are available on the Department of Writing Studies website.

Posted by Shannon at 9:54 AM | Permalink

Associate Professor Bernadette Longo has just been awarded an Imagine Fund Special Events grant for her proposal "Symbols, Cell Phones, and Mirrors." The review committee, noting that this round of the competition was "especially intense," called Professor Longo's proposal "intriguing, well presented, and innovative." Congratulations, Bernadette!

Posted by Shannon at 3:29 PM | Permalink

I'm happy to announce that this year's winner of the undergraduate Medtronic Technical Communication Scholarship is Joanne Steinhofer. Ms. Steinhofer is a Scientific & Technical Communication (S&TC) major with a subplan in Information Technology & Design.

An outstanding student who made the Dean's List last Fall Semester, Joanne is a deserving winner of the award.

Congratulations, Joanne!

Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Ph.D.
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Professor, Department of Writing Studies

Posted by Shannon at 1:56 PM | Permalink

I'm happy to announce that this year's winner of the Victoria Mikelonis Undergraduate Award in Scientific & Technical Communication is Joanne Steinhofer. Ms. Steinhofer is a Scientific & Technical Communication (S&TC) major with a subplan in Information Technology & Design.

As an undeclared major in her first year at the U of M, Joanne happened upon a S&TC brochure that caught her eye and led her to our major with the goal of becoming a Technical Communicator. An outstanding student who made the Dean's List last Fall Semester, Joanne is a deserving winner of the award.

Congratulations, Joanne!

Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Ph.D.
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Professor, Department of Writing Studies

Posted by Shannon at 4:22 PM | Permalink

Prof. Carol Berkenkotter has been selected by the Imagine Fund to receive a 2010-11 Annual Award of $4,000. The award will provide Berkenkotter with the opportunity to travel to London's Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine, where she will finish collecting psychiatric case histories from Ticehurst Insane Asylum (from 1899-1917.) Berkenkotter will also travel to Cambridge, to the Cambridge Library to visit the Charles Darwin archive. Darwin's correspondence with well-known Victorian alienist, James Crichton Browne is at this archive. The purpose for gathering this material is for writing a new book on Victorian psychiatry in the age of Darwin.

Posted by Shannon at 9:43 AM | Permalink

Congratulations to Linda Clemens (seen here with MWCA President Deaver Traywick) who received a Midwest Writing Centers Association student travel award!

Jessica Orton and Renata Solum from the Center for Writing also won the award.

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 10:32 AM | Permalink

Krista Kennedy was recently selected to receive the Kairos Graduate Student and Adjunct Scholarship Award for 2008.

As noted on the Kairos web site, "The Scholarship Award is given to a person whose research and scholarship is already excellent and/or also shows future promise for having an impact on our field. Three $500 awards will be given to graduate students and/or adjuncts in the field of computers and writing. These awards are based upon the three areas that guide our professional lives: Service, Scholarship, and Teaching."

Congratulations, Krista!

Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy
(http://www.technorhetoric.net/awards/gradadjunctnom.html)

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 8:57 AM | Permalink

Congratulations to Greg Schneider, winner of the COGS Leadership Award Honorable Mention! Greg is honored for his leadership on behalf of the graduate students in the Department of Writing Studies. Greg has served as a graduate student representative to the DGS Advisory Committee, instituted a graduate student assembly, worked to redesign and expand the Writing Studies Parlors, ensured that graduate students' perspective is represented well in the curriculum, and helped redesign the way the department conducts preliminary doctoral examinations.

Thank you Greg, for your leadership and service to the department!

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Zoe Nyssa was the recipient of one of eight Consortium on Law and Values grants for summer 2008. This grant makes it possible for her to conduct interviews and a survey of conservationists attending the Society for Conservation Biology conference this July as part of a pilot study for her dissertation on animal conservation discourses.

“Studying Biodiversity, Saving Biodiversity: Investigating Expert Constructions of Public Understanding of Conservation Science�—Zoe Nyssa, PhD student, Writing Studies ($5,954 awarded)

Each investigator receiving this award becomes a "Consortium Student Scholar." He or she will present a written report on the funded work to the full Consortium in 2009 and the project will be featured on the Consortium website. Awardees may also be asked to present at a Consortium-sponsored conference.

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 11:06 AM | Permalink

The edited collection Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies (ed. Blake Scott, Bernadette Longo, and Katherine Wills) has just been announced as the the winner of the 2007 NCTE Award in Technical and Scientific Communications for the Best Collection of Essays on Technical and Scientific Communication. The award will be presented at the ATTW Conference (part of CCCC) on April 2, 2008 in New Orleans. Congratulations to Bernadette and her co-editors on this important recognition.

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 10:41 AM | Permalink

On October 18, 2007, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Ph.D., received an Alumni Recognition Award from the department of English at Iowa State University, where she graduated with her Ph.D. in 1998. The alumni awards are reserved for a select group of ISU graduates who have developed innovative methodologies or taken novel approaches to the application of their knowledge and who have distinguished themselves with outstanding accomplishment in their respective fields. Breuch was honored for her accomplishments including her book Virtual Peer Review: Teaching and Learning about Writing in Online Environments from SUNY Press (2004), her work with online tutoring, online writing instruction, and usability of online interfaces at the University of Minnesota.

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 3:36 PM | Permalink

Congratulations to Scientific & Technical Communication major, Neil Fahlstrom, winner of the Medtronic Scholarship in Technical Communication for the 2007-2008 academic year!

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Scott Wyatt, a PhD student in the RSTC program, was awarded a DOVE Research Grant for the summer from the College of Liberal Arts. This is a competitive and prestigious award. The title of Scott's proposal is "Virtually Different: Rhetorical Strategies of Autistic Students in Virtual Spaces." Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, as his academic advisor, is overseeing Scott's work.

Kenny Fountain, a PhD student in the RSTC program, won a dissertation fellowship from the Graduate School, a very competitive and prestigious award. The fellowship will support Kenny for 2007-08 while he works on his dissertation, "'A Matter of Perception': Rhetoric, Embodiment & the Visual Practices of Anatomy Laboratory Education." Mary Schuster is Kenny's advisor.

Congratulations to Scott and Kenny.

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Congratulations to Greg Schneider who recently was named as the winner of the Council of Graduate Students' (GOGS') Leadership Award. Greg was nominated by the members of the Get Stuff Done writing group that Greg organized in 2004. The group meets regularly and its efforts have improved the quality of many Masters papers, dissertations, and conference papers produced by RSTC students. See the attached nomination letter, largely the work of Salma Monani, a grateful member of GSD.

Greg has talked about devoting part of his award money to improving the quality of the libations at GSD. Sometimes good deeds such as Greg's but also Salma's are rewarded.

Arthur Walzer

Download nomination letter [pdf].

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 11:18 AM | Permalink

Bernadette Longo has been chosen to receive a President’s Faculty Multicultural Research Award to encourage and support research on issues related to people of color, particularly in a North American context. Her project, Nation Building as a Metaphor for Community Development in North Minneapolis, is based on her ongoing community-based research on food security, health disparities, and communication in North Minneapolis neighborhoods.

Posted by Department of Writing Studies at 11:37 AM | Permalink