Writing Arts Faculty

Amy Woodworth, chair
Email: woodworth [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. New York University
M.A. Rutgers University at Newark
Ph.D. Temple University

Dr. Woodworth currently serves as the chair of Writing Arts and teaches a wide variety of courses, from dual enrollment courses for high school students to graduate courses in Rowan's M.A. in Writing program. Her teaching and research interests include genre-based pedagogy, media literacy, racial justice in assessment, and the transition from high school to college. Dr. Woodworth is the co-chair of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council of Writing Program Administrators and is the former president of the New Jersey Writing Alliance.

Leslie Allison
E-mail: allisonle [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Auburn University
Ph.D. Temple University

Leslie Allison joined the Writing Arts department after serving as the Assistant Director of the Writing Center at Temple University, where she also taught writing for years and earned her Ph.D. in English. She currently teaches Foundations of College Writing and serves as the Assistant Director of the Rowan Writing Center.

Dr. Allison’s research interests are in American women’s writing and writing center studies. She has presented on tutor identity and attitudes towards writing instruction at national conferences, and has published in Studies in the Novel.  In both teaching and writing center work, what drives Leslie the most is helping students develop confidence in their ideas, their writing, and themselves.

Megan Atwood
E-mail: atwood [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. University of Iowa
M.F.A. Hamline University

Megan Atwood teaches creative writing and publishing classes, as well as runs an internship for the start-up publishing services company, Singularity Press. She has over 45 books published, including a young adult horror book called The Devils You Know from Soho Teen and a middle grade series called THE ORCHARD NOVELS from Simon & Schuster. Her creative interests include anything genre—mystery, horror, sci-fi/fantasy—for all age groups and she loves nothing more than working with students to create good stories. Megan has 20 years experience in the publishing industry, working as an acquiring editor, developmental editor, managing editor, author, and literary agent. She is an enthusiastic proponent of We Need Diverse Books in the children's lit community.

Anahita Bassiri
E-mail: bassiri [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Temple University
M.A. Georgetown University

Anahita Bassiri earned her M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from Georgetown University and has been teaching in the First Year Writing program at Rowan University since 2008. She teaches Intensive College Composition I, College Composition I, and College Composition II. Additionally, she has taught English as a Second Language in the Pathways program at Rowan. Professor Bassiri is the course coordinator for Intensive College Composition I. Her research interests include methodologies for effective writing instruction for ESL students and multilingualism. Professor Bassiri received Rowan’s College of Communication and Creative Arts Excellence in Service Award in 2018 and the Rowan University Excellence in Diversity Award for a Group Project in 2021.

Ronald Block
E-mail: blockr [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. University of Nebraska-Lincoln
M.A. Syracuse University
M.S. Syracuse University

Ron Block teaches undergraduate and graduate-level creative writing, focusing on poetry and the short story. His books include Dismal River, a collection of poetry, and The Dirty Shame Hotel and Other Stories, about which Kirkus Reviews wrote: “Block’s story debut is a find: droll tales full of real, rumpled, irony-laden life. … A Sherwood Anderson for our time—funny, ironic, inventive, brimming with sympathy.” His work has been published in numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, and Ploughshares, as well as the anthologies A Different Plain, The Big Empty, Nebraska Presence, and many others. In addition to being a two-time winner in the Minnesota Voices Project, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. In 2002, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship.

Kate Brown
E-mail: brownks [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. La Salle University
M.A. Temple University

Kate Brown has been teaching at Rowan University since 2005. She teaches primarily in the First-Year Writing Program and serves as Course Coordinator for College Composition I. She also teaches College Composition II online and enjoys working to find ways to helps students succeed in this different environment.

Katie Budris
E-mail: budris [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Hope College
M.F.A. Roosevelt University

Katie Budris serves as the Program Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Writing. She earned her M.F.A. in poetry and is the author of two chapbooks: Mid-Bloom (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and Prague in Synthetics (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her poems have appeared in over a dozen literary magazines, most recently Deep Wild Journal, River and South Review, Philadelphia Stories, and Border Crossing. Her interests include poetry, literary theory, and literary magazine/small press publishing and editing. At Rowan, Katie teaches a range of creative writing courses and The Writer’s Mind, as well as graduate classes including Editing the Literary Journal and Seminar I & II. She also serves as the Editor in Chief for Glassworks, an internationally circulated literary magazine housed in the MA in Writing program, which can be read online at rowanglassworks.org.

Nicole Cesare
E-mail: cesare [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Eastern University
M.A. Villanova University
Ph.D. Temple University

Nicole Cesare currently serves as the Assistant Coordinator for the First Year Writing Program, and teaches both Composition and Technical & Professional Writing courses. She received her PhD from Temple University, where her research focused on global Anglophone fiction. Her scholarly work has appeared in the Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, and Research in African Literatures. Dr. Cesare is interested in theories of teaching and learning, antiracist pedagogy, and faculty development.

Jennifer Courtney
E-mail: courtneyj [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Duquesne University
M.A. Western Michigan University
Ph.D. Purdue University

Jennifer Courtney teaches Introduction to Writing Arts, Evaluating Writing, Sophomore Engineering Clinic I, Situating Writing, and the graduate Teaching Practicum.

Her research interests are curriculum development in stand-alone writing majors, writing program administration, and cultural studies; her work has been published in several books and journals, including Rhetoric Review, Design Principles and Practices, and Composition Forum.

Celeste Del Russo
E-mail: delrussot [at] rowan [dot] edu
BA in Writing and Literature, Wheaton College, Massachusetts
MA in English, University of New Orleans
MSc in Higher Education, University of Oxford
PhD in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English, University of Arizona

Celeste Del Russo directs the Rowan Writing Center, where she collaborates with students, tutors, and faculty across the disciplines. As a teacher, she writes with her students to articulate the connections between place, learning, and knowledge production, and her pedagogy engages students with resources available on campus and in their local communities. Currently, she teaches Tutoring Writing.

Professor Del Russo's research interests include composition pedagogy, community-classroom archiving, and writing center histories, and she has published in Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing, and Service Learning, Kairos/Praxis and in a forthcoming collection, Making Space: Writing Instruction, Infrastructure, and Multiliteracies.

Tiffany DeRewal
E-mail: derewal [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Messiah College
M.A. Villanova University
Ph.D. Temple University

Tiffany DeRewal teaches courses in the First-Year Writing Program, including College Composition II (Media Literacy and Computer Science) and Honors composition courses. Her research focuses on orthodox medical rhetoric, religious ideologies, and imaginative writing during the Revolutionary era, and her teaching specialties include cultural studies, film and media studies, college research practices, and digital information literacy. Her work has been published in the journal Literature and Medicine.

Tim Donaldson
E-mail: donaldsont [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Cedarville College
M.A. Villanova University
M.F.A. Fairfield University

Tim Donaldson, a member of the Writing Arts Department since 2013, earned his MFA in Fiction Writing and Screenwriting. He teaches courses in the MA in Writing program, the undergraduate major, and the First Year Writing program. In all of his courses, Professor Donaldson challenges his students to gain some new understanding of themselves as writers and as individuals. His academic interests include the intersection of story and identity, the way language constructs the way we think, and the art of worldbuilding. It is the dual roles of “how story creates identity” and “how environment influences story” that inform his current work in progress, a novel about crime, obsession, and the Hemingway legacy set in the Florida Keys. Currently, he is committed to exploring and creating cross-discipline opportunities for students.

Doreen Fera
E-mail: fera [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Temple University
M.F.A. Rutgers University

Doreen Fera primarily teaches Intensive College Composition I, College Composition II, and Sophomore Engineering Clinic. A 30-year career in advertising as a writer and creative director helps her connect the dots between seemingly unrelated topics to bring concepts to life for students in a fresh and entertaining way. 

In addition to teaching undergraduates at Rowan, Doreen is committed to community outreach. She teaches memoir writing to adults, creative writing to high school students, and storytelling to youngsters as author of the children’s book, Rodney Robin’s Fabulous Adventure! which earned a “Best of the Best” endorsement by the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association.

Her academic interests include creative nonfiction, digital composition, and developing writing curriculum for specific majors to address students’ practical needs in business and industry. Her essays have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Gracemarie Mike Fillenwarth
E-mail: fillenwarth [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. King's College (PA)
M.A. Virginia Tech
Ph.D. Purdue University

Gracemarie Mike Fillenwarth received a Ph.D. in English with a focus on Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University. She currently teaches Sophomore Engineering Clinic I, Introduction to Writing Arts, and Introduction to Technical Writing.  Her previous teaching experiences include technical writing, business writing, and global engineering. She also has professional work experience in technical editing.

Dr. Fillenwarth’s research focuses on writing pedagogy across a range of contexts, including second language writing and writing in the disciplines, in order to improve practices in the teaching of writing. Her recent work examines the rhetorical strategies engineers employ to convey their expertise in résumés. 

Michael R. Fisher 
E-mail: fisherm [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Rutgers University
M.F.A. Rosemont College

Mike Fisher has been at Rowan since 2016, teaching primarily in the First-Year Writing Program. His courses include College Composition I & II, Intensive College Composition, Sophomore Engineering Clinic, and Creative Writing I. Mike's work in the FYW classroom is informed by current scholarship in linguistic justice and information literacy, with special emphasis on interrogating ideas of correctness in language. His research interests include popular music studies and lexical studies, and he has presented on both topics at national and international conferences. Mike's scholarly writing and criticism have been published in Phindie, Broad Street Review, and Rock Music Studies. 

Marie Haughton Flocco
E-mail: flocco [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Saint Joseph's University
M.A. Carnegie Mellon University

Marie Haughton Flocco earned her M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition from Carnegie Mellon University and has been teaching first-year writing and public speaking since 2001. She joined Rowan’s First Year Writing Program in 2010. She teaches College Composition I and II. Her interests include high school to college transition as well as composition pedagogy for college students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Professor Flocco is the Coordinator for First Year Experience and the Bantivoglio Leadership and Service Training (B.L.A.S.T.) program in the Honors College. Her recent awards include: 2016 College of Communication and Creative Arts Excellence in Service Award for Writing Arts, 2018 Rowan University Autism Ambassador, and National Association of College and University Residence Halls Faculty Member of the Month (NACURH, Nov 2018).

Cherita Harrell
E-mail: harrel52 [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Rowan University
M.S. Education Walden University
M.F.A. Rutgers University, Camden

Cherita Harrell earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden and a Master of Science in Education at Walden University. She graduated summa cum laude from Rowan University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Writing Arts and received the Excellence in Writing Arts Award in 2013. She is a doctoral candidate at Walden University in the Ed.D. program for Reading, Literacy, and Assessment. Her scholarly interests include critical literacy and critical theory, and her research explores how reading and writing coursework rooted in critical literacy and critical theory may help to improve the literacy development of students of color, as well as create spaces that allow for the exploration of students’ lived experiences through forms of expression, such as oral stories, narratives, visual media, and other literary contributions.

Amanda Haruch
E-mail: haruch [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Rowan University 
M.A. University of Idaho

A graduate of the Writing Arts department, Amanda Haruch rejoined the Rowan University community after graduating with her MA in English from the University of Idaho. She now teaches the courses she loved the most as a student: those involving technologies and writing. Outside of teaching Writing with Technologies and Writing, Research, and Technology, she teaches courses in the first-year writing program, and brings her love for technology into the composition classroom.

Ai Guo Han
E-mail: han [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Xi'an International Studies University
M.A. Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Ai Guo Han has been a member of the department since 1993. He teaches College Comp I, College Comp. II and Chinese language courses. His research interests include social cognitive learning and rhetorical traditions of philosophical Daoism.

Erin Herberg
E-mail: herberg [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.S. Western Carolina University
M.A. Western Carolina University
Ph.D. Georgia State University

Dr. Herberg teaches College Composition I and II, Writing for the Workplace, Writing, Research and Technology, and Contemporary Rhetoric. Her research interests include the history of rhetoric, women and rhetoric, and assessment.

Edward (Ted) Howell
E-mail: howelle [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Eastern University
M.A. Villanova University
Ph.D. Temple University

Ted’s teaching in Writing Arts focuses primarily on Honors courses, Sophomore Engineering Clinic, and classes for Rowan’s Health and Science Communication program. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Geography, Planning, and Sustainability. His research focuses on how philosophies of nature are reflected in writing, specifically how scientists, social reformers, and literary authors collaborate to form and frame ideas about the environment. He received his Ph.D. from Temple University in 2017, where his dissertation focused on British modernist fiction, early ecology, and the Anthropocene. You can read his article on E.M. Forster’s Howards End and the Anthropocene in MLQ. As a teacher, Ted helps students develop their capacity for ecological thought and enables them to find actionable solutions to incredibly complex problems. His courses on climate change fiction, which is often called “cli-fi,” has been featured in The Smithsonian, Reuters, The Atlantic and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and he leads workshops for local libraries about what creative forms of writing can teach us about climate change.

Lisa Jahn-Clough
E-mail: jahn-clough [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Hampshire College
M.F.A. Emerson College

Lisa Jahn-Clough teaches fiction, writing for children, graphic novel, and other creative writing courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs. She is the author/illustrator of fifteen picture books, three YA novels, four comic-book early readers. Her recent chapter book, The Kids of Cattywampus Street (RH, 2021) was an Amazon #1 best seller, and is hailed as “an extraordinary and absurd book” by Lemony Snicket. Her books have received awards from the American Library Association, Bank Street Review, Child Magazine, Parent’s Choice Award, Raising Readers, and EW.com. She has maintained her own small publishing company, Arm-In-Arm Press since the 90’s which still publishes calendars, cards, and the occasional book. Lisa came to Rowan in 2010 and has helped develop students’ careers as authors, editors, and agents. Lisa is also a frequent visiting author in schools and libraries where she discusses writing, illustrating, and book-making and in her spare time is a successful artist. She is a supporter of We Need Diverse Books and other movements promoting diversity in children's literature. You can find more about Lisa at: www.lisajahnclough.com

Drew Kopp
E-mail: kopp [at] rowan [dot] edu
Ph.D. University of Arizona

Kristine Lafferty
E-mail: laffertyk [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Rowan University
M.A. Rowan University

Kristine Annuzzi Lafferty currently serves as the Assistant Coordinator of the First Year Writing Program. She joined the Writing Arts Department in 2014. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in active student engagement and crafting a positive first year experience for her students. Professor Lafferty is particularly interested in peer collaboration, as well as facilitating and engaging in professional development within the First Year Writing Program. Professor Lafferty was honored to receive the Outstanding Adjunct Teaching Award (2015) and Excellence in Teaching Award (2016) for her student-oriented teaching.

Heather Lanier
E-mail: lanier [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. University of Delaware
M.A.T. Johns Hopkins University
M.F.A. The Ohio State University

Heather Lanier is a poet, essayist, and memoirist. She is the author of the forthcoming memoir, Raising a Rare Girl (Penguin Press, 2020), along with two award-winning poetry chapbooks, The Story You Tell Yourself (Kent State, 2012) and Heart-Shaped Bed in Hiroshima (Standing Rock Cultural Arts, 2014). Her essays have appeared in Salon, The Sun, Brevity, Vela, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. She has received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and a Vermont Creation Grant. She teaches a range of creative writing courses, including Writing the Memoir, Creative Nonfiction Writing, Creative Writing 1, and Creative Writing 2. She is especially interested in the essay as a genre of experimentation, the musicality of poetry and prose, and the role of research in personal writing.

Jason Luther
E-mail: luther [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. & B.S. SUNY Fredonia
M.A. University of Nevada, Reno
Ph.D. Syracuse University

Jason Luther teaches Methods of Analysis and the Evaluation of Writing; Writing, Research, and Technology; Introduction to Writing Arts; and Self-Publishing. His research focuses on DIY culture, publishing, publics, and sound writing. Jason has presented at several national conferences and has recently co-edited both a special issue of Community Literacy Journal and the 2017 edition of The Best of the Journals in Rhetoric and Composition.

Deb Martin
E-mail: martind [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.S. Western Michigan University
M.A. Texas Woman's University
Ph.D. Texas Woman's University

Dr. Martin currently teaches Writer’s Mind and Core I. Her research areas include writing assessment and writing pedagogy. Her work has been published in various books and journals including Middle School Journal, Writing Program Administration, Disability Studies Quarterly, and Assessing Writing. Dr. Martin directed the Rowan Writing Center from 2009 to 2011, directed the University's Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning from 2011-2016, and has also served as Provost Fellow.

Keri Mikulski
E-mail: mikulski [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.S.N. Thomas Jefferson University
M.A.T. The College of New Jersey
M.F.A. Rutgers University

Keri Mikulski is a comedy writer and the creator and founder of R U Joking (www.rujoking.org), a student-run comedy website. Keri also teaches Comedy and Creative Writing. When she’s not creating or teaching, Keri can be found surfing small Jersey Shore waves with her family and fist-pumping. Learn more at www.kerikelly.com.

Jude Miller
E-mail: millerju [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Rutgers University
M.A. Rutgers University

Jude Miller has been teaching in Rowan University's Writing Arts Department since 2009. He primarily teaches Sophomore Engineering Clinic and courses in the First-Year Writing sequence, including the online and hybrid versions of CCII. He serves as the assistant coordinator of the First-Year Writing Program, in addition to serving on the steering committee for the New Jersey Writing Alliance, a volunteer-run, non-profit organization that holds an annual conference for writing teachers across NJ. He’s also an elected officer in the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Online Writing Instruction Standing Group. In 2017, he received Rowan’s College of Communication and Creative Arts Excellence in Service Award, and in 2019 he was the recipient of a Rowan grant to replace required textbooks in FYW courses with free, online Open Educational Resources.

Jaclyn Partyka
E-mail: partyka [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Ursinus College
M.A. University of Massachusetts Boston
Ph.D. Temple University

Jaclyn Partyka joins the Writing Arts Department from the School of Critical Studies at The University of the Arts and the English Department at Temple University. She teaches in the First-Year Writing program, where she works to foster reflective approaches to digital literacy within the writing process. Her research focuses on authorship, genre, and contemporary multimodal literacies. Dr. Partyka’s scholarly writing has appeared in Contemporary Literature and Metaliterate Learning for the Post-Truth World (2018) and she has forthcoming chapters in the edited collections Trump Fiction: Essays on Donald Trump in Literature, Film, and Television (2020) and Reading the Contemporary Author: Narrative, Authority, Fictionality.

Amy Reed
E-mail: reeda [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. & B.S. The Ohio State University
M.A. University of Dayton
Ph.D. Virginia Tech

Dr. Reed's areas of interest include rhetoric of health and medicine, disability rhetoric, and technical and professional writing. Her current research projects examine how rhetoric circulates through different audiences, genres, discourse communities, and time periods. For example, her book project, Rhetorical Mutations: Meanings of Down Syndrome in Prenatal Testing Discourse, examines how meanings of Down syndrome circulate through different vectors of prenatal testing discourse, getting taken up by new audiences in unpredictable ways. Another project examines the historical trajectories of topoi in gun control debates. At Rowan, Dr. Reed teaches courses in the WA core curriculum, as well as in the Technical and Professional Writing program. She is a member of the task force to design a new interdisciplinary major in Health and Science Communication, and she holds a secondary appointment at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.

Stephen A. Royek
E-mail: royek [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Rowan University
M.A. Rowan University

Professor Royek is the 2015 recipient of the Writing Arts Department’s Antoinette Libro Medallion Award and was named in 2019 to the Rowan University Wall of Fame. As a full-time Writing Arts Lecturer, Professor Royek teaches Sophomore Engineering Clinic 1 (and serves as the program’s Writing Arts coordinator) along with courses in the Writing Arts major and the First Year Writing Program. He also teaches News Media Literacy for the Journalism Department, where he was an adjunct professor before joining Writing Arts. Earlier in his career, Professor Royek worked as a reporter and editor at the Cherry Hill, NJ Courier-Post and USA TODAY, as public relations director at international manufacturer AMETEK, Inc., and as national marketing director at First American Title Insurance Co. Among his professional recognitions are a 2010 Feature Writing Award from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and a series of publicity writing, advertising, art direction, and design awards from the PRSA, the Business Marketing Association, and the New Jersey Press Association.

Rachael Shapiro
E-mail: shapiror [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. State University of New York, Plattsburgh
M.A. Washington State University
Ph.D. Syracuse University

Rachael Shapiro teaches Writing, Research, and Technology, Intro to Writing Arts, Evaluating Writing, and Situating Writing. She works with students to develop their rhetorical flexibility across a range of writing spaces and genres, focusing on questions of social and political relevance. She has taught developmental, freshman, critical research, professional, and digital writing classes both online and face-to-face, in addition to years of writing center work. Her research centers on digital literacies, language politics, feminism, and globalization. Her work has appeared in Computers and Composition Online, The Basic Writing eJournal, Literacy in Composition Studies, and Reflections.

Jennifer Tole
E-mail: tole [at] rowan [dot] edu
Ph.D. Temple University

Dr. Jennifer Tole earned her Ph. D. from Temple University before coming to Rowan in 2014. She teaches Sophomore Engineering Clinic I, Writing for the Workplace, College Composition I and College Composition II.

Whether it is in the composition classroom, in training students to communicate as successful professionals, or in helping engineering students navigate technical documents, Dr. Tole views the act of writing as empowering and her goal is always is to inspire students to be more critical readers, more effective writers, and more informed thinkers. Her research interests include technical and professional writing, writing in the disciplines, collaborative writing, and community-engaged learning.

Sanford Tweedie, Dean of the College of Communication and Creative Arts
E-mail: tweedie [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. University of Michigan
M.A. Eastern Michigan University
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Sanford Tweedie teaches writing at all levels in the department. He has taught at the University of Erfurt in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and received Rowan's Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award. His research interests include students in transition, classroom-based research, genre-stretching writing, and pedagogy that matters.

He is the author of In the Shadows of a Fallen Wall from University of Nebraska Press. His writing has also appeared in College Composition and Communication, English Journal, Exquisite Corpse, and Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, among others.

Professor Emeritus

Julia MacDonnell Chang
E-mail: chang [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Stonehill College
M.S. Columbia University
M.A. Temple

Julia MacDonnell Chang's second novel, Mimi Malloy At Last, was published by Picador in 2014. Her first novel, A Year of Favor, was published by William Morrow & Co. She is the nonfiction editor of Philadelphia Stories, a quarterly journal of literature and art in both print and online formats.

Professor Chang publishes under her maiden name, MacDonnell. Her story, "Soy Paco," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her story collection, Plight of the Piping Plover, was named a finalist in the 2012 Spokane Prize for Fiction, and was short-listed for the 2012 Snake Nation Press fiction prize. Her articles and book reviews have appeared in the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia and the New York Daily News, and the Philadelphia City paper.

She is the recipient of two fiction fellowships from the N.J. State Council on the Arts, two Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation fellowships for residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a Pulitzer Traveling fellowship, an excellence in journalism fellowship from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation and numerous other awards for her journalism and fiction. Samples of her writing are available on her website, www.juliamacdonnell.com.

Joseph Giampalmi
E-mail: giampalmi [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Widener University
M.Ed. Widener University
Ed.D. Temple University

Dr. Joseph Giampalmi has been teaching at Rowan since 1998. He teaches CCI Honors Sports Concentration, CCII Honors Technology and Publication, Honors Business Writing, and Writing As Managers. His research interests include brain-friendly learning, writing-to-learn, and Common Core Standards.

Dr. Giampalmi has published three sports books and dozens of articles for national publications. Since 1985, he has been writing a semi-monthly education column ("Conversations in Education") for Town Talk Newspapers (Media, Pa.) and has published more than 700 columns. In addition to consulting with schools and businesses, he has presented to local, regional, and national audiences.

Jeffrey Maxson
E-mail: maxson [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Yale University
M.A. University of California at Berkeley
Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley

Jeff Maxson teaches Writer's Mind, Issues in Composition Studies and Core I. He is currently looking at how alternative discourse forms-multi genre writing, translation, parody-open up new spaces for writers. This may be especially the case for writers who are non-native or non-standard-dialect speakers of English. Ultimately such efforts can challenge the notions of "good," "acceptable" or "beautiful" writing in academic settings, and help us more eagerly embrace the differences among us.

Gerald Williams
E-mail: williamsge [at] rowan [dot] edu
B.A. Catawba College
M.A. Rutgers University

Gerry Williams has taught several courses in business and technical writing, college composition, and communication at several institutions including Rowan University, Rutgers University, and community colleges. He published regularly in computer technology media, and he participated in The National Endowment of the Humanities Bridging Cultures Project: Thinking through Cultural Diversity program in 2013. Research interests include computer-mediated communication and intercultural communication. Gerry enjoys working with first-year writing students and motivating them to think critically and to develop their writing styles.

Roberta Zehner
E-mail: zehner [at] rowan [dot] edu
A.B. Rosemont College
M.A Glassboro State College

An instructor in the department since 1990, Professor Zehner teaches in the First Year Writing Program. Teaching College Composition I and II is the perfect place for her to help ease the transition from high school learning to college learning, one of her areas of interest. Her main goal is for students to learn to be critical thinkers, and her assignments and class discussions are geared to allow students numerous opportunities to develop this ability. Learning to read critically, producing a writing portfolio, and speaking in class are the methods by which this goal is accomplished. In her classes, students are urged to participate and soon realize that there is no such thing as a stupid question or a bad idea, just ideas that need to be explored. The emphasis is on learning: it is a rare student entering the composition classroom who has been trained to think critically. Critical thinking has to begin somewhere and Professor Zehner's CCI and CCII classrooms are a good place to start.

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