Faculty Profiles

Christopher Carter is Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches courses in writing theory, activist rhetoric, and visual culture. He is author of four single-authored books, two collaborative books, and he is previous editor of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor. His latest work, Composing Legacies: Testimonial Rhetoric in Nineteenth-Century Composition was published by Peter Lang in 2021. His essays have appeared in Works and Days, JAC, College English, and Rhetoric Review, and he has written chapters for Tenured Bosses and Disposable Teachers as well as Narrative Acts: Rhetoric, Race and Identity, Knowledge. He has also directed the Composition Program at UC and served as Divisional Dean of Humanities.

Christina M. LaVecchia is Assistant Professor of English and faculty in discipine-based education research (DBER). Her research spans multiple disciplines. In rhetoric and composition, her work focuses on contemporary composing theories, writing pedagogies (with particular interest in at-risk student populations), invention, digital literacies, and professional practices. Currently she is co-editing a volume on revision practices (Revising Moves: Writing Stories of (Re)Making, Utah State University Press) in which contributors tell stories about revising and its impacts on thier work, identities, and everyday lives. Her published work in rhetoric and composition appears in College English, Composition Forum, Peitho, and JAEPL, among others.

She is a former Research Fellow and current Research Collaborator in the Knowledge and Evaluation Research (KER) Unit at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. There she uses her training rhetoric and writing to researched patient-clinician communication and care (shared decision-making) that is individualized to meet patients’ values and preferences and fits their lives. Her collaborations appear in Patient Education and Counseling, Health Expectations, BMJ Open, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovations, Quality, & Outcomes. She also has several works in progress with KER, most notably a study on patients’ experiences with contested, medically unexplained illnesses and conditions, an experience she terms undercared-for chronic suffering. While at Mayo Clinic she has also taught a workshop series on scientific writing to biomedical sciences postdocs and graduate students.

From 2019 to 2021 she supported faculty and programs from across disciplines with writing pedagogy as the founding Director of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program and Assistant Professor of English at Neumann University in Aston, PA.

In 2012 she was the UC English department’s William C. Boyce Excellence in Teaching Award recipient and is the UC College of Arts and Sciences 2014 recipient of a university-wide teaching award.

For more on her research and teaching, visit her website: http://www.christinamlavecchia.org

Laura R. Micciche, Professor of English, teaches a wide variety of writing-related courses. At the undergraduate level, she teaches composition, style, copyediting & publishing, and writing pedagogy for secondary teachers. At the graduate level, her courses have focused on theories of composing, affect and materiality studies, research methods, teaching college writing, writing for publication, and job market preparation. In addition, she developed and has led an interdisciplinary dissertation workshop since 2013 for advanced graduate students (for more about this, see "Dissertation Assistance During COVID-19").

Her research focuses on composing processes, feminist pedagogies, and affect. Monographs and edited collections include Failure Pedagogies: Learning and Unlearning What It Means to Fail (with Allison D. Carr; Peter Lang 2020), Acknowledging Writing Partners (WAC Clearinghouse/UP of Colorado 2017), Doing Emotion: Rhetoric, Writing, Teaching (with Dale Jacobs; Boynton/Cook 2007), and A Way to Move: Rhetorics of Emotion and Composition Studies (Boynton/Cook 2003). Essays and chapters on related and other topics (i.e., inclusive editing; wpa agency; feminist writing practices; graduate student writing instruction; grammar instruction) have appeared in WPA, College English, College Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Review, JAC, Composition Studies, Composition Forum, Peitho, The Atlantic, and numerous edited collections. For six years, she served as editor of Composition Studies, an independent journal in rhetoric and composition, and is currently co-editor, with Chris Carter, of the WPA Book Series for Parlor Press. See complete CV for more info.

RUSSEL DURST has served as President of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy; Chair of the National Council of Teachers of English Standing Committee on Research; and Editorial Board member for the journals COLLEGE COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE AND LEARNING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES, and WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION. He is a member of the Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee on Research. He has published over 40 essays on composition in journals and collections. His books include THEY SAY/I SAY: THE MOVES THAT MATTER IN ACADEMIC WRITING (WITH READINGS), with C. Birkenstein and G. Graff (W. W. Norton & Co, 2009, Second Edition 2012, Third Edition 2015, Fourth Edition 2018); ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESEARCH AND TEACHING: REVISITING AND EXTENDING ARTHUR APPLEBEE’S CONTRIBUTIONS, with G. Newell and J. Marshall (Routledge 2017); YOU ARE HERE: READINGS ON HIGHER EDUCATION FOR COLLEGE WRITERS (Prentice Hall, 2003); COLLISION COURSE: CONFLICT, NEGOTIATION, AND LEARNING IN COLLEGE COMPOSITION, (NCTE, 1999); and EXPLORING TEXTS: THE ROLE OF DISCUSSION AND WRITING IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF LITERATURE with G. Newell (Christopher-Gordon, 1993). He teaches courses in writing, composition pedagogy and research, and English linguistics. He directs the University of Cincinnati College of Arts and Sciences Honors Scholars Program for undergraduates.