CWP - Faculty

Michelle Baptiste has a B.A. in English and a Masters degree in English as a Second Language. She has taught writing to international students at the University of Hawai'i, as well as to Navajo (Dine) teachers on the Navajo (Dine) Indian Reservation through Northern Arizona University. She is a returned Peace Corps volunteer and loves to interact with people from diverse cultures.

Stephanie Bobo, Ph.D. Lecturer.
sbobo@berkeley.edu

Stephanie Bobo has a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Boston University and has taught at the university level for almost twenty years. She has taught College Writing R1A since 1992. She writes both fiction and poetry, and does freelance writing and editing consulting for businesses and professionals.

Yuet-Sim Chiang, Ph.D. Lecturer.
chiang@berkeley.edu

Yuet-Sim Chiang teaches courses in reading and composition and composition theory and practice at UC Berkeley. In addition to her work as a Bay Area Writing Project teacher-consultant, she also researches on literacy issues, including the cultural tension and politics of English literacy for students of non-western roots. Her other research interests include teacher growth and development, English literacy practices in and out of schools, and cultural post-colonial studies. She has written chapters for such collections as Situated Stories: Valuing Diversity in Composition Research, Generation 1.5 Meets College Composition, and Under Construction: Working at the Intersections of Composition Theory, Research, and Practice.

Erika Clowes, Ph.D. Candidate. Graduate Student Instructor.
ekclowes@earthlink.net

Erika Clowes is currently completing her Ph.D in English at UC Berkeley, where she specializes in modernist literature and psychoanalytic theory. Her work has been published in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child and Fort-Da. She has been teaching analytical writing at Berkeley since 1996.

Caroline Cole, Ph.D. Lecturer.
cmcole@berkeley.edu

Caroline Cole received her doctorate in the Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois. In addition to teaching composition courses, she has taught courses in business writing, technical writing, and desktop publishing. Beyond College Writing, she teaches Business Communication (UGBA100) for the Walter A. Haas School of Business and leads professional communication seminars and workshops in university and industry settings.

Teri Crisp, M.A. Graduate Student Instructor.
tcrisp@berkeley.edu

Teri Crisp is pursuing a doctoral degree in social and cultural studies in the School of Education at UC Berkeley. She has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in international studies. In the last five years, she has taught English language, argument and research skills, and film to advanced international students at Golden Gate University, and trained Americans who plan to teach English abroad.

Verda Delp, Ph.D. Lecturer.
vkd@berkeley.edu

Verda Delp taught English in the Berkeley Public Schools for many years. She has also taught courses in literature and writing in the Graduate School of Education at Berkeley and for the Bay Area Writing Project. She recently received her doctorate in language, literacy and culture from UC Berkeley.

Laurie Doyle, M.F.A. Lecturer
doyle.la@sbcglobal.net

Laurie Doyle has been a writing teacher and coach with the Berkeley schools and the University of San Francisco, where she received an M.F.A. in writing. She is the author of Their Beautiful Bodies, a book of short stories. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in The Express and other bay area publications. She is co-editor of Watchword literary magazine, and a curator of The Whole Story, which features multimedia responses to one outstanding story. Laurie also holds a Master in public health from Yale University, and for many years led a dual life as writer and health educator/trainer. She loves sharing the pleasures and challenges of writing and reading with students from diverse backgrounds.

Melinda Erickson, M.A. Lecturer.
erickson@berkeley.edu

Melinda Erickson teaches a variety of courses in College Writing Programs, integrating her interests in music, travel, and language as themes. Her academic work focuses on composition studies, applied linguistics, teacher development, language assessment, and language policy. Her teaching and administrative experiences include positions at UCLA, the Institute of Science and Technology (PRC), Instituto Guatemalteco Americano (Guatemala), the Ministry of Education (Tunisia), and Shantou University (PRC). She is active in professional organizations such as the Bay Area Writing Project, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, and College Composition and Communication—giving conference presentations and writing for their publications. She also serves as a member of Editorial Advisory Boards for several journals and as an English Language Specialist with the U.S. Department of State.

Donnett Flash, Ph.D. Candidate, Lecturer.
dflash@berkeley.edu

Donnett Flash is a Ph.D. Candidate in political science at UC Berkeley and has had many years experience teaching at UC Berkeley, City College of San Francisco, and Laney College. Donnett enjoys teaching Summer Bridge, which she has done for the past three years.

Cody Gates, M.F.A. Lecturer.
cgates@berkeley.edu

Cody Gates has taught writing, poetry, and drama at California State University East Bay and Saint Mary's College (where he also received his M.F.A. in Poetry). Born in San Bernardino, California, he is a published poet and freelance writer, having worked for The Los Angeles Times and SEGA Games, and has had poetry or reviews published in journals such as VOLT, Xantippe, Frisson, and The Redlands Review. He lives in Oakland, but can often be found in Paris.

Jane Hammons, M.A. Lecturer.
jhammons@berkeley.edu

Jane Hammons is the recipient of Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award (1997-1998) and the coordinator for College Writing Programs' Summer Bridge course, College Writing N2: Writing the Bridge from High School to the University. Working with the California Council for the Humanities, she served as a Steinbeck Scholar, leading discussions of The Grapes of Wrath, during The John Steinbeck Centennial Celebration. She is also a writer of fiction and nonfiction, publishing most recently in River Walk Journal, Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, Alaska Quarterly Review, Kitchen Sink, Rhino, Natural Bridge, Slow Trains, Word Riot, The San Francisco Chronicle, and taintmagazine.com.

Carolyn Hill, Ph.D. Lecturer.
chill4@berkeley.edu

Carolyn Hill received her doctorate in rhetoric from UC Berkeley, studying the argumentative artistry of Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough. She has been teaching at the university for over twenty-five years, writes science fiction and fantasy, builds websites, and eats lots of chocolate. For publications and more, see carolynhill.com.

Heather Kirn, M.F.A. Lecturer.
hkirn@berkeley.edu

Heather Kirn holds an M.A. in teaching from Johns Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She has taught in a number of different settings, including an English conversation school in Japan and a struggling Baltimore high school. Before arriving in Berkeley, she taught creative nonfiction and composition courses at Ohio State, where she received the Graduate Associate Teaching Award. She also developed curriculum for the university's First-Year Writing Program. A writer of poetry and nonfiction, Heather has published most recently in such places as The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, Hunger Mountain, and Third Coast, and her work has been honored in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly.

Jonathan Lang, Ph.D. Lecturer.
see the CalNet directory for email

Jonathan Lang received a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, and a master's and doctorate from Princeton University. His interests are in English, French, and American literature of the nineteenth century and the modern period.

Michael Larkin, M.F.A. Lecturer.
larkinm@berkeley.edu

Michael Larkin has taught writing at universities in the Bay Area, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, and is a teacher-consultant for the Bay Area Writing Project. He has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, and an M.FA. from the University of Pittsburgh. He also serves as a kind of writing handyman for various business and individual clients, and he writes fiction and essays, most recently published in Cimarron Review, Other Voices, Natural Bridge, and Kitchen Sink magazine, for which he regularly writes the “Culture Mulcher” column on reading, writing, and culture.

Katherine Lee, M.A. Lecturer.
khlee@berkeley.edu

Katherine Lee received her B.A. in English from UC Berkeley and her M.A. in the humanities from the University of Chicago. She has worked extensively with Berkeley's Student Learning Center as an undergraduate writing tutor, an assistant coordinator for the writing program, and a writing workshop leader and discussion leader for Summer Bridge.

John Levine, M.F.A. Lecturer.
jblevine@berkeley.edu

John Levine received his B.A. in English from Oberlin College and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He has been teaching writing since 1995. Before teaching he worked as a public relations and advertising writer for radio and television. In his spare time he writes.

Kaya Oakes, M.F.A. Lecturer.
kaya_o@berkeley.edu

Kaya Oakes joined the College Writing faculty in 1999. She has been a recipient of an innovation grant and a faculty fellowship from the Mellon Faculty Institute for Undergraduate Research, a summer fellowship with the Bay Area Writing Project, and prizes and grants from the Academy of American Poets. Kaya received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Saint Mary's College. Her essays, poems and reviews have appeared in more than twenty different publications, and her prize winning first book of poetry, Telegraph, was published in 2007. She is currently at work on a nonfiction book about indie culture in America (forthcoming from Henry Holt) which is based on themes from her College Writing R4B course.

Gail Offen-Brown, M.A. Lecturer.
gob@berkeley.edu

Gail Offen-Brown has taught writing at UC Berkeley for over twenty years, and she is a Teacher-Consultant for the Bay Area Writing Project. She teaches courses in freshman composition and creative nonfiction to undergraduates, and provides training in writing theory and pedagogy to graduate students as well as high school and college teachers. Gail is a recipient of the 2004 Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs.

Brad Rossi, M.A. Lecturer.
brossi@berkeley.edu

Brad Rossi received a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana and a master's degree in English literature from DePaul University in Chicago. Prior to joining College Writing, he taught English at a struggling public high school in Chicago. In earlier lives, Brad worked as a researcher at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and taught English as a foreign language to teachers in training in Poland.

David Skolnick, M.A. Lecturer.
dskolnick@berkeley.edu

David Skolnick received his B.A. in history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at San Francisco State University. His travels and teaching experiences abroad and in the Bay Area have led him to his current position teaching writing to the diverse student body at UC Berkeley.

Ryan Sloan, M.F.A. Lecturer
see the CalNet directory for email

Ryan Sloan has taught writing and fiction at New York University, where he received his M.F.A. in Fiction. Before this, he received an M.A. in English Literature at University College London, and has worked in the marketing, apparel, and IT consulting industries. Born in Pasadena, California, Ryan writes fiction and creative nonfiction, and has been published in a variety of places, including LA Weekly, Opium Magazine, The Modern Spectator, and Painted Bride Quarterly.

Katherine Snyder, Associate Professor and Director of College Writing Programs.
ksnyder@berkeley.edu

Katherine Snyder received her B.A. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in English from Yale; she has been a member of the English Department at UC Berkeley since 1993. Her first book, Bachelors, Narrative, and the Novel, 1850-1914, was published in 1999, and she is currently working on a project that explores the artistic and sexual sub-cultures of New York and New Orleans in the 1920s.

Jane Stanley, Ph.D. Associate Director of College Writing Programs.
jstanley@berkeley.edu

Jane Stanley is interested in the history of composition and the rhetoric of remediation. She has taught composition and administered composition programs for twenty-some years.

Pat Steenland, Ph.D. Lecturer.
steenpat@berkeley.edu

Pat Steenland has a Ph.D. in English literature from Brown University. She has taught literature and writing at several places, including the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Brown University, and Harvard University. She has taught writing at UC Berkeley since 1997.

Steve Tollefson, M.A. Lecturer.
tollef@berkeley.edu

Steve Tollefson has taught writing at UC Berkeley for several decades and is the author of four books on writing and grammar, including Grammar Grams (1989) and Grammar Grams II (1992, HarperCollins), as well as short stories and numerous articles. He is a recipient of the campus Distinguished Teaching Award.

Margi Wald, M.A. Lecturer.
mwald@berkeley.edu

Margi Wald received her M.A. in Applied English Linguistics from the University of Houston. She is currently director of UC Berkeley's Summer English Language Institute, co-editor of The CATESOL Journal, and editor of Second Language Writing News. Her research focuses on corpus-based materials development and academic literacy development among immigrant ESL students.

Deirdre Williams, M.A. Lecturer
dew@berkeley.edu

Deirdre (Dee) Williams received her MA in anthropology at the University of Florida and her undergraduate degree in anthropology at UCSD. She has taught writing composition, anthropology, ESL, and EFL since 1993. In a previous chapter of her life, she lived and worked in Africa and continues to volunteer at a non-profit organization that focuses on grassroots development efforts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Her addictions include sugar, trail running and kick-boxing…pretty much in that order.

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Teaching in CWP

The College Writing Program offers three kinds of employment opportunities for composition instructors: full-time lecturer, part-time lecturer, and graduate student instructor. Information about each of these opportunities follows.

Full-time Lecturer: The full-time faculty is small. Openings do not arise frequently. When a position does become available, it is advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the MLA Joblist, and other nationally circulated publications. Additionally, job announcements are sent to Composition/English departments in a large number of universities and colleges. There are currently no full-time openings.

Part-time Lecturer: The number of part-time lecturers varies with enrollment demands. Part-time positions are filled from a pool of qualified applicants. Minimum qualifications include an M.A. degree in composition, English, or a related area; at least two years of successful experience teaching first-year composition; and experience working with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations. Interested candidates should send a letter of application describing experience and teaching philosophy, as well as a curriculum vitae, to Professor Katherine Snyder, Director, College Writing Programs, 112 Wheeler Hall #2500, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2500.

Graduate Student Instructor (GSI): Typically, six to eight GSI appointments are made each year. U.C. Berkeley graduate students from a wide range of disciplines are recruited. Minimum qualifications include substantial experience teaching first-year composition, and experience working with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations. Job announcements are posted in or near most department offices across campus and are sent to the Graduate Division. Additionally, GSIships will be published in the forthcoming GSI JobList on the U.C. Berkeley website. Interested candidates can request more information by phoning Jane Stanley, Associate Director, at 510-642-9491.

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