Photo by Lee Thomas

Illustration by Cricket Press

 

We live in an age of communication. From writing to speaking to texting to social networking, we are constantly communicating with others. The way that we communicate — the words that we use, the style with which we deliver them, and the mode of delivery — determines the impact and effectiveness of our messages.

 

Realizing the importance of training students to be skilled writers and communicators, educators across the country are beginning to place a top priority on the study of written and spoken language. At the forefront of this movement, the UK College of Arts & Sciences has launched the Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media.

 

“Rhetoric,” Roxanne Mountford, director of the new division, explains, “is a term that encompasses all forms of communication.”

 

Departments that specialize in the study of writing and rhetoric understand that the ability to use language effectively gives people a competitive advantage in all aspects of life.

 

“When surveyed, most businesses and organizations place communication (in writing) as their top priority for new hires,” said Jeff Rice, incoming professor of writing and digital media. “This is the information age. We hope to work with students so that they will be prepared for the communicative challenges they will face in their future, whether they stay in Kentucky or move elsewhere. How will they produce information? How will they share it with others? What kinds of collaborative situations will they be placed in? Which media will they work with? We are the program to help students with such issues, whatever area of study they are pursuing.”

 

The Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media will be offering traditional courses in writing, but will also offer many new course offerings.

 

As Mountford explains, “Writing is no longer considered to be just a flat print medium. It also includes visuals, design and audio essays. We will develop all these areas across the spectrum of the curriculum.”

 

Students can expect to see courses such as Writing for the World Wide Web, African-American Rhetoric and Writing for Documentary Film listed as the program gets underway.

 

In keeping with the research interests of its faculty, the division will also have a community focus. For example, new faculty members Vershawn Ashanti Young and Adam Banks have led free seminars for community members, and Mountford herself has been involved in community writing projects for low-income youth.

 

The Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media will be co-leading the new Composition and Communication General Education curriculum with the new Division for Instructional Communication in the College of Communications and Information Studies, offering 20 of 35 pilot sections of the new courses in the Fall 2010 and Fall 2011 semester.

 

While the division for Instructional Communication will still be responsible for speech and public-speaking courses in the lower and upper division, the Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media will be collaborating with the division to find ways to reconnect the study of rhetoric across the two colleges. Long-term, Mountford remarks, this means courses could be cross-listed between the two disciplines.

 

“The goal,” Mountford said, “is to reconnect communication for students so they don’t feel any longer like, ‘I write, and that’s something that’s really different from going to a speech class and speaking, and that’s really different from making websites, which I do in technical communication class, or what I do at home on Facebook and email.’”

 

Five distinguished faculty, three distinguished lecturers, and a remarkable postdoctoral scholar have already been hired, an achievement that has drawn national attention. Typically, it can take years to build such a critical mass of new faculty, but with the support of the dean of Arts & Sciences, Mark Kornbluh and Provost Kumble Subbaswamy, UK has managed to make this important and exciting change occur within one year.

 

The five new professors will join division director Roxanne Mountford, assistant professor Bill Endres; long-standing Writing Program faculty Janet Eldred and Randall Roorda; and full-time lecturers Tom Marksbury, Judith Gatton Prats, Erik Reece, Katherine Rogers-Carpenter and Mary Katherine Tri as they form the latest division in A&S. Professors Adam J. Banks, Janice Fernheimer, and Vershawn Ashanti Young will start in the fall of 2010, while Professors Jeff Rice and Jenny Edbauer Rice will join UK in fall 2011. New full-time lecturers include: Beth Connors Manke, Amanda Moulder and Kelly Jacob Rawson.

“The people we hired, they’re all top in their field,” Mountford said. Noting their stimulating and varied research interests, she adds, “They’re trendsetters.” 

 

Adam Banks’s work combines the study of African-American rhetoric and new media. Both he and Vershawn Young, who specializes in black performance studies and African-American communication, go outside of the ivory tower of academia to offer free community education classes to the public. 

 

Jenny Edbauer Rice deals with public controversies, particularly the ways in which people discuss changes in urban space. Inspired by changes she saw occurring in Austin, TX, Rice pursues ethnographic work that engages in how issues such as neighborhood gentrification and urban use are debated in the public sphere. 

 

Janice Fernheimer’s groundbreaking work on Judaic rhetoric contemplates how issues of authenticity and identity collude within a community of black Jews in New York. Finally, Jeff Rice’s career focuses on new media, pedagogy and rhetoric. Rice’s expertise in digital literacy has taken him from the university classroom to the urban landscape as he engages in the research of communications and networking. 

 

“The one area of study that unites all areas of study is writing,” comments incoming professor Jeff Rice. “Rhetoric teaches us the ways to communicate via writing (as well as how to communicate visually and orally). We live in the age of communication. Consider the impact of the Internet, and more recently social networking, on communicative practices. What changes? What stays the same? What do we need to learn how to do? Our challenge is to understand how to prepare students for this age of communication.”

 

Eventually, the division plans to offer both an undergraduate and doctoral degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media. “I think it will be enormously popular because it will help students develop expertise in an area that they can take out into a career,” Mountford said. “It’s a humanities degree with a practical application.”

 

The Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media is on track to become nationally recognized among rhetoric and composition programs. “With the quality of the faculty that we have and are bringing in, we’re poised to surpass many longstanding programs in rhetoric and composition,” Mountford said. “And it’s because we have top faculty that we are able to draw a very exciting pool of students.”

 

The new division has an enormous potential for growth and collaboration across the University of Kentucky.

“UK's program offers an exciting opportunity to develop a curriculum in line with the kinds of writing we do daily, professionally and personally in the 21st century,” said Jeff Rice.