Program Alumni

In the past ten years, the Composition and Rhetoric program has placed over 95% of its graduates in academic positions. Graduates of the program go on to teach in tenure-track positions at a wide variety of institutions, including, for example, Northeastern University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, UMass Boston, Muhlenberg College, Miami University of Ohio, California State University Fresno, University of Southern Maine, University of North Texas, Washington State University, DePaul University, and Coastal Carolina University.

Awards

As the following selected examples illustrate, our graduates are a distinguished lot. Two have won the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC): Amy Lee, 1996, and Collie Fulford, 2011. In 2017, Jessica Ouellette won the CFSHRC Presidents Dissertation Award. And two have won book awards from CCCC: Mya Poe (UMass 2005), the Advancement of Knowledge Award (2012) and Margaret Price (UMass 2004), the Outstanding Book Award (2013). Under the leadership of Emily Isaacs (UMass 1993), Montclair State University’s Writing Program was honored with the CCCC Program of Excellence Award for 2011-12. Lisa Dush (UMass 2009) won the 2016 Richard Braddock Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

More recently, graduates have won the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication and the 2025 CFSHRC Presidents Dissertation Award, as well as the Rhetoric Society of America Dissertation Award and the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Society for the History of Rhetoric, the CFSHRC's 2018 Presidents Dissertation Award and received an honorable mention for the 2018 CCCC James Berlin Memorial Outstanding Dissertation Award.