M.A. in English
Why did you choose graduate school at IUPUI?
The University Writing Center. I needed to work in a Writing Center that was growing and that valued me as a researcher and an administrator as well as a consultant. I am a writer first and foremost and I needed a school that didn’t sweep that under the rug as “another wannabe novelist.” Here I appreciate the freedom to be a writer and also dabble in linguistics and literature at my leisure.
What has been your favorite academic accomplishment since you’ve been here?
I will be presenting on the feminization of the writing center grand narrative at an international conference. Though I have presented at this international conference before, this time I am very passionate about the work I am doing which discusses the active ways in which we embrace our field and move it from feminized to feminist.
What do you enjoy most about life in Indianapolis?
The food, easily. Indianapolis is an up and coming and ever evolving food culture that often emphasizes local products. I have worked in a large number of Indianapolis restaurants from kitchens to wait-staff and as a result I have always been fascinated by food and food writing. My absolute dream job is to be a food writer.
Please provide some details about your work/research as a graduate student and/or any activities you are involved in.
In Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers, Jackie Grutsch McKinney raises the question: What is the effect of what we censor when we construct the Writing Center grand narrative? My focus of study at the moment has to do with how the way in which we frame what Writing Centers do and, more importantly, what we choose to leave out of that frame, impacts how we perceive our own value and how our value is perceived by others. It is construction of our perceived value which we are implicit in that contributes to the oppression women, Liberal Arts Majors, and Writing Centers. Within the patriarchal culture and product-driven Academy, the Writing Center is capable of drawing on the feminization narrative for its strength as a place of process over production. By embracing our sex politics, using our skills as interpreters, and putting a stop to self-deprecating rhetoric, the Writing Center and its professionals can break the cycle caused by the current Writing Center grand narrative and come to a place where it can demand the value it is worth. In doing so, I hope to change the way that liberal arts schools are seen and talked about and advocate that liberal artists deserve to be valued and funded just as other disciplines.