Professor Jacqueline Rhodes has been appointed Interim Chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (WRAC) for a two-year term, effective August 16, 2018-August 15, 2020.
For the past year, Rhodes has served as Director of the Consortium for Critical Diversity in a Digital Age Research (CEDAR). Part of MSU’s College of Arts & Letters, CEDAR advances transformative scholarship and creative activity at the intersections of self/society, digital/material, technology/culture rooted in the recognition that race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and other forms of difference are central to digitally engaged student learning in the 21st century. As Director, Rhodes networked with faculty and community groups and helped secure $138,000 in grant funding from the Humanities Without Walls program.
“I am pleased and honored to join the leadership team in WRAC,” Rhodes said. “From first-year writing to our Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing, we have strong and innovative programs because of an award-winning faculty committed to student learning and critical participation in the world. I’m looking forward to working together to build on those strengths.”
As Interim Chair, Rhodes will provide leadership and serve as the chief representative for the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. She also will be responsible for educational, research, and service programs; budgetary matters; physical facilities; and personnel matters within the department.
“Dr. Rhodes has done an outstanding job as the inaugural director of CEDAR and brings that exceptional leadership experience to her position as Interim Chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures,” said Christopher P. Long, Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “She also is a transformative and engaged scholar who has a deep understanding of how theory and practice converge in leading-edge collaborative scholarship. I look forward to working with her in her new role.”
Dr. Rhodes has done an outstanding job as the inaugural director of CEDAR and brings that exceptional leadership experience to her position as Interim Chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures.
DEAN CHRISTOPHER P. LONG
Rhodes joined the Michigan State University faculty in fall 2016. Her scholarly work focuses on intersections of rhetoric, materiality, and technology, and has been published in a variety of venues, including College Composition and Communication, JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Computers and Composition, Enculturation, and Rhetoric Review.
She was awarded two consecutive Lavender Rhetorics Awards for Excellence in Queer Scholarship at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) for her collaborations with Jonathan Alexander, Professor of English and Informatics in the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. The Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship recognizes work that best make queer interventions into the study of composition and rhetoric, work that rises to a high level of excellence in its originality, the significance of its pedagogical or theoretical contributions to the field, and its existing or potential influence.
Rhodes’ book, On Multimodality, co-authored with Alexander, won both the 2015 CCCC Outstanding Book Award and the 2014 Computers & Composition Distinguished Book Award.
Prior to coming to MSU, Rhodes was a Professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, an M.A. in English from the University of Idaho, and a B.A. in English from the University of Montana.
