2017 Carolinas WPA Board Election

Candidates’ Statements

 

To Vote: If you are on cwpa@lists.carolinaswpa.org, you will receive an email with a ballot link. Voting closes Sunday, November 26 at 11:59 p.m.

 

Representatives serve two year terms from January 2018-January 2020.

 

Candidate for South Carolina At-Large Representative (vote for one)

 

Jessica Ulmer is an instructor of English at Midlands Technical College in Columbia, SC and a doctoral student in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. Though she began teaching at the middle and high school level back in 2006, as she was completing her second master’s degree, Jessi began teaching at the two-year college level in Massachusetts and Rhode Island while searching for full time work. She soon joined the Two-Year College Association of NCTE and realized her love for all things two-year college. As such, Jessica has been working on an article for Teaching English in the Two Year College called “Writing about Writing at the Two-Year College,” stemming from her master’s thesis on the same topic. She has presented about this at the annual conferences for the Two-Year College Association – NorthEast chapter, the Two-Year College Association – SouthEast chapter, the Two-Year College Association – West chapter and the Council of Writing Program Administrators. An avid proponent for quality composition instruction across the Carolinas, Jessi presented at Wildacres in September 2017 about “Building Bridges” across both states in terms of English department collegiality and composition pedagogy. Since returning to Columbia, she has begun researching WPAs and department chairs at all of the colleges across South Carolina, in the hopes of bolstering SC attendance at CarWPA events as well.

 

Candidates for North Carolina At-Large Representative (vote for one)

 

Cat Mahaffey is the Associate Director of First-Year Writing and a Senior Lecturer in the University Writing Program at UNC Charlotte. She also serves as a Quality Matters Faculty Fellow for the Distance Education Department at UNC Charlotte. Cat has been an active member of Carolinas WPA for five years. Her research interests include online writing instruction (OWI), digital composition, technical and professional writing, and accessibility. Her list of professional affiliations includes the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE) and the OWI Standing Group of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).

 

Jan Rieman is a Senior Lecture in the University Writing Program at UNC Charlotte where she currently serves at First-Year Writing Director. She has taught First-Year Writing for over twenty years at a number of different institutions, from small, private colleges to large, public universities like UNC Charlotte, where she has been since 2007. Her research interests include writing program assessment, translingualism, and anti-racist writing assessment. She is co-editor of Next-Steps: New Directions in Writing about Writing, forthcoming from Utah State UP. Jan has been an active member of Carolinas WPA for five years and is interested in continuing to build on the collective power of the group to affect change for good in the current landscape of higher education in the Carolinas.