Anyway. Here:
Acknowledgement pages are tricky beasts, and I’m not ashamed to admit that this will always feel incomplete. But hey, if you're reading this: I am thankful for you. You have made an impact in my life, and that is reflected in the work that follows.
In the summer of 2013, I received a Purdue Graduate School Summer Research Grant, which allowed me to spend a good amount of time gnawing on books and articles and ideas. Because of a funny sequence of events, Professor Michael Salvo graciously signed my grant application form at the last minute, and I'm grateful.
As I've held administrative positions in ICaP and the Writing Lab, Linda Haynes and Tammy Conard-Salvo have been superb guides and role models. Joy Kane, as well, has been a great ally and sounding board.
I was lucky enough to participate in the early years of WPA-GO, a collection of colleagues and peer mentors who helped me talk through my project, in various iterations, at every conference. The support of @womeninTC and #getafterit scholars was incredibly helpful in these past few months, as well.
I've had productive conversations with Libby Miles and Amy Ferdinandt Stolley, at very different times, but being able to bounce ideas off them kept me going when I wasn't sure I was on the right track. Kyle Vealey and I have had several long conversations about mêtis and infrastructure, and I always came out of them with a better idea of what I thought. A couple of Writing Lab tutors, including Marc Dziak, helped me fine-tune early presentations of this project, which is probably why it's as coherent as it is. During an Assessment seminar in Fall 2011, Professor Richard Johnson-Sheehan coached me through an article that is now a large chunk of Chapter Five.
When I started at Purdue, I wasn't quite sure what this whole "rhetoric" thing was about. I'm thankful for Kristen Moore, Jen Talbot, Megan Schoen, Cris Elder, and Laurie Pinkert, all of whom mentored me in different ways. It took me a while to find my feet, but they were always there to keep me steady.
My cohort has been a weird and wonderful group, and I've been glad to have them for support, as well as productive disagreement. I am especially grateful for Emily Legg and Adam Strantz. While I might have been the only avowed WPA in our group, I've learned a ton from working with them.
Without Mary McCall, Gracemarie Mike, Jeff Gerding, and Jennifer Justice, I would not have survived this year. There are no words that can express how much I am thankful for their love and support.
Professor Samantha Blackmon, Professor Linda Bergmann, and Professor Jenny Bay have been tremendous mentors and teachers. They helped me grow.
On one of my very lowest days, Professor Patricia Sullivan sat with me, and she said, "Let's start a writing group." Her generosity is astounding; her mentorship is a blessing.
Professor Thomas Rickert has been an endlessly encouraging and patient chair. His questions and, yes, puns, have helped me relearn how to think on paper. In my very first semester, I took his Institutional Rhetoric seminar; I've been writing with that class in mind ever since.
My family has been lovely and supportive, even when I didn't make very much sense to them. Christopher, Andrea, Alexandra, and Mom and Dad, I hope I keep making you proud. And, finally, to my departed grandparents, Eliseo and Mercedes, Pablo and Paz--I am a scholar because you gave me books. Thank you, always.
In my first year of doctoral work, I took a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) seminar with Professor Linda Bergmann. On our first day of class, as she began to define WAC, she stopped and sighed. "It's impossible," she said. There were too many variables to account for, when trying to establish and build an interdisciplinary program. In addition to reconciling what "evidence," "organized," and even "writing" meant to an array of disciplines that approached learning in a multiplicity of ways, in addition to the unwieldy task of articulating what students want, being a coordinator of a WAC program involved the delicate political negotiation of making a large group of faculty do extra work. "It's impossible," she continued on, "but we try anyway."
And I was a lowly first-year, stuck in with, primarily, a group of advanced graduate students who had been acting as scholars and program-builders in complete (it seemed to me) confidence. That class, in many ways, was my first introduction to the discipline of writing program administration, both as a concept and in comportment. Honestly, it was terrifying, but I kept my head down and pressed on.
So, five years later, we come to this, a deeply personal story written in a key I'm still learning how to play. I'm attempting to reconcile a lot of ideas and identities and stuff, and not a single one of them plays nicely with the others. On most days, I've been pretty sure completion of this whole thing wasn't possible, but, well. I'm told we only deal with the impossible, here.
Thanks, Linda.
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