For history's sake--our Newsletter from Spring 2008

We’ve changed…

We have a new name, a new faculty member, a new director, and a new public face (see below).

Please, call me “RPW.”

We are now officially the Rhetoric and Professional Writing Program. This change reflects the revision of general education requirements across the University, as well as changes in the discipline and profession of technical communication. This change applies to the major, minor, and certificate programs.

New Faces…

We warmly welcome William Breeze to the faculty. See below for an interview with Professor Breeze.

We also welcome Beth Richards in a new capacity. A long-time member of our teaching faculty, she is now the new director of the RPW program.

and a New Interface.

We are thrilled to announce our new website (http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/rpw/), designed by RPW student Max Fine. Please scroll through and enjoy. There are tabs dealing with current and past students, faculty, course descriptions, requirements, and more. Please send comments, corrections, and suggestions to brichards@hartford.edu.

“Question Convention”: a Conversation with Alumnus Kevin Lamkin

Kevin Lamkin was graduated from the University of Hartford in 1999, and since then he has worked at Capital Community College, taught composition, and completed a Master’s degree in English. He helped to found an alternative print publication called the Hartford Undercurrent, and co-writes and co-produces a weekly public affairs radio show called RadioActive that airs on WWUH 91.3fm and WESU 88.1fm. He researches, edits, and writes reports for the Center for Social Research.

RPW: What moved you to major in writing? Was it a particular class, a particular professor?

KL: Actually, my interest in writing at the college level started in RLC 110/111, largely because of the instructor Sue Stamm, who last I knew was teaching in All University Curriculum. I enjoyed creative writing in high school, but was not a big fan of English, or high school writing in general. The first year composition courses at Uha opened up a new world of writing for me. I remember really latching onto the notion that college level writing and beyond would allow me to write my own perspective, not just the extracted meaning of a text as is the expectation of a lot of high school writing. I always liked current events and tough issues, and in my first year RLC courses these were the basis of the writing. As students we had to think critically about the issues presented and articulate our thoughts. Through this process I felt that my opinions mattered. I felt like an active participant rather than just someone who was trying to find "the right answer." Therefore, my early experiences in college writing were very empowering.

RPW: How did your writing change? What was your experience of the department and the major?

KL: The first change, as I said earlier, was empowerment. The more I studied writing, the more empowered I felt, the more able I felt to express my own perspectives and critical thinking. This was most immediately applicable to my involvement in student activism. My experiences in the major helped me become a more critical thinker, a critical consumer of information.

RPW: What courses did you take after 110? What were they like?

KL: Many courses stand out from my experiences as a major. Critical Literacy, Collaboration and Revision, Foundations of Argument, Effective Business Communication, Creative Non-fiction, the theory course, the portfolio capstone, etc. Overall, the courses gave me a diverse sense of how writing can be crafted and the importance of critical thinking in the writing process. There's definitely a theme to the major – that writing and thinking should not be separated.

RPW: What sorts of experiences from your writing at the University of Hartford did you find most helpful in locating a job? On the job now?

KL: In the major there was a consistent focus on writing with a purpose and using organization. To do this, you must know your audience. What's true of writing is true for any form of communication. My experiences as part of the writing major prepared me for many different tasks, whether simply writing an effective resume, preparing a proposal for a conference or publication, creating a syllabus, or organizing an interview strategy.

On the job now, every day I use something I learned from my experiences in the writing major. I teach critical thinking skills to my students, how to read a text, how to ask good questions and incorporate their perspectives. I work with a diverse group of students and coworkers, many with different native languages or cultures than mine. Therefore, I must constantly monitor and adapt my communication style, written or verbal. When I'm writing research reports, I must always be cognizant of my audience and purpose, and I must organize and effectively convey large amounts of data.

RPW: Is there anything you'd like to say to students now in the major, or considering the major?

KL: Question your teachers. Question convention. Keep writing. The writing won't always come to you. You may have to create the avenues for your writing. Regardless of the career path, the skills of the critical writer will be among your best assets. Most of all, use writing as a means to empower yourself and others.

Remember that writing can be dangerous if you do it right!

For the full text of this interview, see our website: http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/rpw/

“Think Outside the Walls”: a Conversation with Professor William Breeze

Professor William Breeze is the newest full-time member of our faculty; he comes to the University of Hartford from Ohio. We’ll let him tell you the rest.

RPW: Professor Breeze, welcome to the University of Hartford. What has your experience of the university and its students been so far?

WB: I’ve had a wonderful experience at the university. I’m coming from a much larger institution—Ohio University—and I’m struck by how easy it has been here to quickly become a part of the school. I have also had a chance to get to know students more quickly because the university is so close-knit. Connecting with students can make teaching a much more rewarding experience and I’ve found my students to be eager and interested in the work of the classroom.

I see professional and technical writing as a place where we can encourage students to think outside the walls of the classroom—to see how the work we do here will have long-reaching effects on their life after graduation. The courses we offer teach diverse writing skills while also emphasizing a critical understanding of social and professional interaction. I think that this is the ideal goal for any writing program: to teach writing as a long-term social investment.

RPW: What in your background might come as a surprise to us?

WB: This is always a tough question. Being familiar with myself, nothing seems surprising. I think most people are surprised to hear that I am a Navy and Gulf War veteran. I usually don’t think to talk about it with people and it only comes up after people have known me for a while. Perhaps people expect me to have taken a more traditional path through academia.

RPW: Can you tell us more about your teaching philosophy?

WB: Education is what helped me find a calling and to get a real sense of who I am and what I believe. Everything I know and everything I stand for comes from the role language has played in my life. Through writing I am able to articulate who I am and what the world means to me.

RPW: You have done some interesting work in male feminist teaching. What is male feminism? How did you come to it?

WB: Feminism, for me and many others, is part of a broader social philosophy that embraces progressive politics and issues of justice and equality. Thus feminism, from my point of view, is inextricably linked to interrogations of how race, gender, and class function in society. A man embracing feminist ideas may share the same concerns with feminist women, but with the added need to constantly self-reflect about the role his gender plays in the very issues to be interrogated.

RPW: What are some of the future directions you see for rhetoric and professional writing, both here at the University of Hartford and in the broader world?

WB: I anticipate the program at Hartford to grow stronger and more popular. It’s clear that the word is getting out that the courses we teach are quite beneficial to a number of majors. Writing and critical thinking are at the heart of what we do and are the two skills employers believe college graduates most lack. A recent New York Times article (August 26, 2007) noted that, in a survey of 100 human resources executives, “Nearly half [. . .] said that entry-level workers lacked writing skills, and 27 percent said that they were deficient in critical thinking.” In the past couple of decades, education has been concerned with teaching students to work with technology. If writing and critical thinking have taken a back seat, rhetoric and professional writing programs here and across the country are well-placed to address the problem.

For the full text of this interview, see our website: http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/rpw/

Keeping in Touch

We know, from prior experience, that our graduates have gone on to work in the military, computer science, technology, manufacturing, non-profit, corporate communications, and education—but we’d like to hear from you, whatever you’re doing. Tell us what you’re doing now.

Name:

Address:

Year Graduated:

Concurrent Major or Minor:

Current Job:

New email address:

Experience you’d like to share, from your time at the University of Hartford, or from your recent experience:

Email your information to brichards@hartford.edu

Future Newsletters

Coming newsletters will feature more interviews with graduates and faculty, discussions of trends and issues in technical communication and rhetoric, and news for past and current RLC/RPW students. Stay tuned.

If you have questions, comments, corrections, and observations about this newsletter, contact editor Graham Christian at graham.christian@gmail.com.

If you have general questions or comments about the RPW program, or just want to say hello, contact Beth Richards at brichards@hartford.edu