Keynote Presentations
IWAC 2018's keynote speakers for June 4-6 are found below. For more information on each speaker and their keynote address, click the links.
June 4, 2018
Visual Storytelling for Change
Sanjeev Chatterjee, The University of Miami
As an independent documentary storyteller and mentor to media change makers internationally, Sanjeev Chatterjee has been experimenting with strategies for using visual storytelling and the internet to reach audiences across borders. In his keynote, he will share takeaways from some recent experiments.
Sanjeev Chatterjee is a professor, visual storyteller, and an avid mentor to young changemakers in the media and related fields.
After earning his M.A. in English literature from Delhi University, Sanjeev worked for two years as a grassroots filmmaker focused on rural development in India. In 1987 he was awarded a full scholarship to Brooklyn College where he completed his M.F.A. in Radio and Television specializing in documentary storytelling.
Sanjeev is currently a full professor with appointments in the Department of Cinema and Interactive Media (primary) and the Department of Journalism (secondary) at the University of Miami. He teaches courses in visual storytelling, media and society, and film and television production. Sanjeev also serves on the faculties of Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change (since 2006) and Young India Fellowship (since 2011).
During his tenure at the University of Miami, Sanjeev has fulfilled a variety of administrative responsibilities including serving as the vice dean of the School of Communication (2006 – 2010) and the founding executive director of the Knight Center for International Media (2007 – 2011). Sanjeev directs UIndia, the University of Miami's semester abroad program in India (2013 – present). In 2015, he founded the independent, Florida-based non-profit Media for Change with the goal of creating a global collaborative network of media changemakers.
Sanjeev's documentary work has won top awards internationally and attracted funding from multiple sources including the Knight Foundation, Florida Humanities Council, UNDP, UN Water, Stockholm International Water Institute, United States Institute for Peace, and others. He was a Fulbright Scholar (India) in 2011 and currently serves on the Fulbright national selection committee (USA).
Sanjeev lives in Miami with his wife Sumita, who is a historian, their two teenage children Abhinav and Uma, and their dog Maraka. At home he spends a lot of time in the kitchen and tending to his vegetable and fruit garden.
June 5, 2018
Antiracist Pedagogy in WAC
Vershawn Young and Frankie Condon, University of Waterloo
Working at the intersections of antiracist rhetoric and writing pedagogy, collaboration and alliance, and scholar-teacher activism, Vershawn Ashanti Young and Frankie Condon will explore with participants creative approaches to antiracist pedagogy across the disciplines.
Vershawn Ashanti Young is a faculty member in the Department of Drama and Speech Communication and the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He has also served on the faculties of the University of Iowa and the University of Kentucky. He teaches African American literature, African American rhetoric, performance studies, public communication, rhetorical studies, and writing. He serves as a consultant to schools and organizations in the areas of cultural competency and diversity. He values collaboration and has co-authored several recent books including Other People's English (Teachers College Press 2014), Performing Antiracist Pedagogy in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication (University Press of Colorado, 2016) and The Longue Duree of Black Voices: The Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric (forthcoming Routledge 2018). For the past decade, he has been developing the concept of code-meshing, using multiple Englishes and dialects in formal written and oral communications in school and at work.
Frankie Condon is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Frankie's books include the newly published, Performing Antiracist Pedagogy in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication, co-edited with Vershawn Ashanti Young (WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado); I Hope I Join the Band: Narrative, Affiliation and Antiracist Rhetoric; and The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice, co-authored with Elizabeth Boquet, Meg Carroll, Michele Eodice, and Anne Ellen Geller (both published by Utah State University Press). Among Frankie's recent book chapters is "Building a House for Linguistic Diversity: Writing Centers, English Language Teaching and Learning, and Social Justice," co-Authored with Bobbi Olson and published in Tutoring Second Language Writers (Utah State University Press). She is currently completing research for a new book tentatively titled, Absolute Equality: The Radical Precedents of Post-Racial Rhetorics in the 21st Century. This work is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Frankie lives in Waterloo with her partner, kids, two dogs, a cat, and a chinchilla named Sid. When she is not teaching or writing she may be found, in summer, fussing over her vegetable patch or, in winter, watching hockey in an ice rink somewhere in North America.
June 6, 2018
Making Writing Meaningful
Michele Eodice, University of Oklahoma; Anne Ellen Geller, St. John's University; and Neal Lerner, Northeastern University
Michele Eodice is an Associate Provost and Director of the OU Writing Center at the University of Oklahoma. Michele's current research explores creative knowing in engineering and doctoral student writing experiences. Among her publications, two books are the products of important collaborations: (First Person)2 : A Study of Co-Authoring in the Academy (2001), written with Kami Day, and The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice (2007), written with Anne Ellen Geller, Frankie Condon, Meg Carroll, and Elizabeth H. Boquet. In 2013 she published Working with Faculty Writers with Anne Ellen Geller as co-editor.
At St. John's University in Queens, New York, Anne Ellen Geller is Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, which was awarded a 2013 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Writing Program Certificate of Excellence. She teaches undergraduate and graduate English courses, directs a writing fellows program and works with faculty across the disciplines. Anne's research and published writing, twice recognized with the International Writing Centers Association Outstanding Scholarship Award, focuses on writing centers, writing across the curriculum, support for faculty and student writers, co-authorship, and National Endowment for the Humanities funding of writing programs.
Neal Lerner is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, which was a 2014 recipient of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Writing Program Certificate of Excellence. He has published on the history, theory, administration, and practice of teaching writing in classrooms, laboratories, and writing centers, and is a five-time IWCA Outstanding Scholarship Award recipient. His book The Idea of a Writing Laboratory won the 2011 NCTE David H. Russell Award. He is co-author of Learning to Communicate in Science and Engineering: Case Studies from MIT, winner of the 2012 CCCC Advancement of Knowledge Award, and co-author of The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring, 2nd ed.
Note: The three co-directors of The Meaningful Writing Project were the recipients of the Best Poster Award at the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication. This research was supported by a 2010-2011 CCCC Research Initiative Grant. The Meaningful Writing Project: Learning, Teaching, and Writing in Higher Education (2016) is available from Utah State University Press.