I am currently a third-year PhD student in the COM department. My major area is rhetorical studies and my minor area is public policy. I have always been fascinated with NASA and my dad bet me that I couldn't make a career out of studying the organization. I'm trying to make him eat his words. My current plan for my dissertation is to examine the narratives that U.S. presidents have used to explain their NASA policy directives to the public. The best way that I can think of to do a narrative analysis of this type is to apply the Burkeian Pentad. I've decided to join this class because it's much more fun to (re)read Burke with others.

I grew up (mostly) in Pittsburgh, PA and completed my MA in Professional Writing at Carnegie Mellon University in 2001. After a brief stint as a public relations professional, I decided that teaching was really my passion and accepted the offer I received from Purdue to join the COM PhD program. I am currently preparing for my preliminary exams (if I look tired between September 4 and October 5 you will know why), stand-alone teaching COM 312: Rhetoric of the Western World, and TAing for COM 318. I've never taught COM 312 before, so I'm looking forward to an exciting semester.

In the mean time, the "other" me is getting married December 29, 2007, and plans are starting to pick up. I also have two bonded pairs of rabbits, Maggie & Riley Finnegan and Duncan & Willow, that like to keep me hopping when I'm at home.

Introductions are always difficult for me because I never know where to start or what about my life is worth sharing. I am a first-year PhD student in the Rhetoric and Composition program here a Purdue. My current academic interests include exploring how content management strategies and course management applications can be better implemented or developed for composition specific classrooms. By taking this course, I am hoping to increase my understanding of how Burke fits into the history of composition and rhetoric. Hopefully, one day I will be able to sit in a bowling alley with a friend named Walter and talk about my experiences teaching college composition.

How I got here, however, is probably more entertaining than my current goals or interests. I spent most of my life in a little industrial town called Flint, Michigan plotting an exit strategy (It was either that or join the UAW and I am not that good with tools). My big opportunity came when I was offered a job at a local newspaper, which was then sold to a competitor and closed six months later. But, “the Dude abides.” My response to being told that I had to pack my possessions into a box by the end of the week was simple; I packed my car and spontaneously moved to Savannah. Six month’s later I ran out of money and limped my way back home to Michigan. Shortly after returning to Michigan I decided graduate school was a better exit strategy and move to Atlanta to attend Georgia State University where I received my MA in English.

In my other life, I am a website developer who spent his entire summer developing and designing a new website for the English Department at Georgia State University . I am also a wicked crocket player who likes to pretend to be a bowler and a golfer.

How I came to Purdue was on a bit of a curvy road. I first began my educational training at Wabash College, a small, all-male, liberal arts college in central Indiana. Looking back I think I was crazy for attending an all-male institution and missed out on a lot of the "fun" of college, but it was a challenging and rewarding experience. After receiving my BA, I then decided to attend law school (I didn't really know what else to do) at the DePaul University College of Law. From the first day of class in law school, I knew that my career would not be spent as an attorney, but I couldn't get myself to quit. So, I finished law school (reading more literary texts than my actual law casebooks along the way) and decided to practice law for a while to make sure I did not want to be a lawyer. That lasted about 3 years, and then I went back to graduate school at Northern Illinois University where I received my MA in English.

At Purdue, I am a second year PhD student in the Rhet/Comp program, and my scholarly interests include Professional/Technical writing, Public Rhetorics, and Legal Rhetoric. I'm not sure where my dissertation will lead me, but I bet it will have something to do with argumentation/interpretation/legal rhetoric.

As far as where I am from, I hail from the small town of Poseyville, IN, which is about 20 minutes west of Evansville, IN. I've lived abroad in England for a short time and before coming back to graduate school I split my time between Chicago and Milwaukee.

As far as the "other" me, I'm not sure what to say. I'm a huge Chicago Bears fan and am still a little disgusted at their Super Bowl loss last year. Plus it doesn't help that they lost to the Colts, a favorite team of many Lafayette/Purdue/Indiana locals, so I'm pretty sick of looking at Peyton Manning jerseys. Oh, I'm remodeling my home in Lafayette. It was built in 1905 I think, and I've spent the summer trying to upgrade portions of the house while at the same time trying to maintain some of the historic charm. My lack of "handyman" skills has made the remodeling process a difficult one, yet I've learned a lot from it.

As I said in class, I'm a second year PhD in RhetComp, but this is my fourth year here at Purdue. I'm still trying to get over the irony of being in the midwest when I swore (after four years in Wisconsin at Lawrence University) that I would never come back here. I grew up on the West Coast (born in Long Beach, California, raised outside of Portland, Oregon), and I feel more than a little land-locked and ideologically-blocked here being so very far from the Left Coast.

I'm a huge culture geek, and I try to bring in pop culture (books, tv, film, comics, etc.) and online culture (Livejournal, fanvids, fanfiction, etc.) in all of my research. I also have a fondness for classical rhetoric (thank you, classical history minor), and my pet concept is the enthymeme. Really, I can blame all of my academic interests for the past two years on Aristotle's inadequate definition of enthymeme, which has led me to comics, gestalt psychology, and now Burke.

My "real life" is mostly taken up by my pets. I have two dogs, Ollie and Dinah, and a cat, Bastet, who are like my children. I don't carry around pictures of them in my wallet yet, but I have actually considered it. Oliver is a six year-old golden retriever/sheltie/jack russell terrier mix that I rescued from a no-kill shelter in Yucaipa, California and Dinah is a two year-old border collie mix that I rescued from the Tippecanoe Humane Societ (before they changed their name). Bastet is a two year old black Bombay, also rescued from THS.

When I'm not spending time on schoolwork or my pets I also am on the alumi advisory board for the Ball State chapter of my sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and spend as much time as possible travelling, and I'm hoping to take a trip to the UK in th next year as a post-prelim present to myself.

I'm a second-year master's student in the Rhet/Comp program.

When I was a first-semester student here at Purdue, I attended the bi-weekly seminar held last fall and encountered the name Kenneth Burke early and often there. What I heard from the various speakers was intriguing, though a little hard to understand at times. It amazed me how many times Burke was mentioned and how many ways people were able to apply his work.

My own areas of interest range widely. This includes the study of humor. Also, though I'm in the Rhet/Comp program, I write fiction and poetry and have worked as a freelancer for a newspaper. I also spent two years writing obituaries and one year working at a private school. I worked as a grants writer for my internship and as a fiction editor for the undergraduate literary magazine at Waynesburg College.

I'm a Pennsylvania native--and have lived there all my life. The last academic year was the first time that I'd lived outside of the state for more than a week. I grew up south of Pittsburgh in rural Washington County and attended school at Waynesburg, which is in the next county down (and is flanked on two sides by West Virginia). The nearest landmark that most people would recognize in that area, in fact, would be WVU.