The Epiphany Project
January '97 Epiphany Institute Leaders
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The People at Epiphany Project Headquarters:
Randy Bass is Director of the Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies (CEPACS) at Georgetown University. He has been working with educational technology since 1986 and has directed or co-designed a number of electronic projects including for Bank Street Center for Technology in Education, the Context34 Intermedia Project at the Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship at Brown University and the "Syllabus Builder" for the Heath Anthology of American Literature (D.C. Heath, 1994). He is founder and moderator of T-AMLIT (Teaching the American Literatures). Bass is Assistant Professor of English and member of the American Studies Committee at Georgetown University.

Trent Batson’s work with computers has focused mostly on collaborative work with ENFI (Electronic Networks for Interaction) and the resulting networked-classroom movement a prime example. Recently, however, he’s broadened his approach to include faculty development and analysis of epistemological changes across the disciplines inspired by information technology. He is currently the Director of Academic Technology at Gallaudet University and has shared the limelight with Fred Kemp and John O’Connor as a co-director of the Alliance for Computers and Writing. He won an EDUCOM- NCRIPTAL award in 1989 for his work with ENFI and has been recognized for his innovations by the Smithsonian Institution.

Steve Gilbert is Director of Technology Projects at the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) and is one of the leading experts on the uses of information technology as it applies to teaching and learning. He launched the AAHE Teaching Learning and Technology Roundtable Program which has grown dramatically to include hundreds of institutions. Steve worked at EDUCOM which he served as vice president. He runs the AAHESGIT list on the Internet which currently has around 4,000 subscribers and has been called one of the best lists on the Net about teaching with technology issues.

John O’Connor is Dean of New Century College at George Mason University; the degree program is based on interdisciplinary, collaborative, experiential, and self-reflexive learning. The College is housed in the Johnson Center, and John directs the programming for the building. He is also Vice Provost for Information Technology, responsible for computing, libraries, TV Studio, and Instructional Development Office. He says his jobs are simply to make real Fred Kemp’s educational fantasies (and he doesn’t want to know Fred’s other fantasies).

Greg Ritter has a BA in English from Virginia Tech, an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa, and is nearly finished with an MA in Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University. He was part-time English faculty and an Epiphany leader at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Richmond, and currently is Program Development Specialist at Gallaudet University.

Judy Williamson is a full time writing instructor at American University and performs occasional administrator-ish tasks for the Epiphany Project. The Field Guide to 21st Century Writing was her brainchild, and having gone through several "preview-draft" versions now appears in a new unbound format thanks to Gail Matthews-DeNatale’s collaboration. She’s found the Epiphany Project to be nothing less than inspirational in terms of meeting wonderful people and having opportunities to work and learn with them.

E-Team Leaders:
Elizabeth Cooper is the Director of Composition and Rhetoric, Associate Professor of English, and Co-Director of the Capital Writing Project at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She teaches writing and the teaching of writing. In Spring, 1997, she will team teach, with Michael Keller, a graduate course called Teaching Writing with Computers.

Ron Corio was unable to be with us at this Institute, but he has been a key member of the E-Team since its inception. Ron teaches ESL classes in writing at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he also teaches writing classes and the first-year, interdisciplinary Core course. His current research and teaching interests focus on the networked classroom and the history of technology. Joe earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1983. Before beginning graduate work, he taught in Madrid, Spain during the 1985-86 school year at the Richmond Centro de Idiomas (no relation to Richmond, VA). In 1993, he earned a Ph.D. from Indiana University in American Literature with a minor in the History of Science.

Dona Hickey was unable to be here for this Institute. Dona is the director of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at the University of Richmond.

Michael Keller is the Computer Coordinator for Virginia Commonwealth University’s English Department and is the site director for Epiphany efforts at VCU. Keller has taught undergraduate poetry workshops and advanced composition in computer classrooms. This semester he will co-teach a graduate level class in computers and writing. He is currently interested in computer support, computer literacy, faculty development, and web-based research.

Donna Reiss and her students use electronic conferencing extensively in writing and literature courses at Tidewater Community College, where Donna is active in collaborative communication across the curriculum initiatives on line and off; participates in Epiphany Project campus activities; and coordinates the college Teaching, Learning, Technology Roundtable.

Sydney Sowers earned her BA in Psychology from Roanoke College, MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from VCU, and is currently an instructor at the University of Alabama, teaching American Literature and serving as Assistant Director of the English Department Computer Lab. She has been an Epiphany Project participant for 2 years, and she loves science fiction and Elvis Presley.

Ann Woodlief has been teaching literature courses—American lit, nature writing, women writers, critical reading and writing—with the computer for several years at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the English department. Visit Ann at: <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/woodlief.html>.

Andrew Higgins joined the team in November when asked to help lead an Epiphany workshop in Newark, NJ. He is a full time writing instructor at American University and is finishing a dissertation on Walt Whitman for his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Claudine Keenan arrived at the June Epiphany Institute in Richmond just after teaching her first semester completely online. The friends and support she has found in Epiphany have helped her to become a project leader and to strengthen her online interests, including a collaborative hypertext article about the institutes published in Kairos, an online journal for which she now serves as Sections Editor. She holds an Executive Office with NCTE’s Assembly for Computers in Writing and currently serves on the National Writing Project’s online Design Team. Claudine teaches writing full time at the Penn State Allentown Campus in addition to her administrative responsibilities in the Lehigh Valley Writing Project and in Continuing Education.

Gail Matthews-DeNatale has a Ph.D. from Indiana University and has held positions with the University of South Carolina and George Mason University’s Institute for Educational Transformation, where she taught the Language, Culture and Technology strand of IET’s Master’s program. She currently works in Boston with Network Technology Program and The Center for Civic Networking on The Virtual Classroom Project. Over the past ten years she’s developed programs using local culture and student life experience as a catalyst to create of communities of learning. Her web page: <http://www.tiac.net/users/denatale>.

Peter Sands has used computers to teach writing and literature for six years. He directs the University of Maine-Presque Isle Epiphany site, is on the Steering Committee of the New England Alliance for Computers and Writing, and does consulting for schools and software companies, including Sixth Floor Media, publishers of CommonSpace collaborative writing software. Dr. Sands has written a resource chapter on hypertext resources for the Epiphany handbook: A Field Guide to 21st Century Writing, contributed to another chapter on teaching in synchronous conferencing environments, and has other publications on teaching with computers forthcoming. His web page: <http://maine.maine.edu/~psands>.

Featured Speakers:
Formerly Director of the University of Michigan’s English Composition Board, Bill Condon is now Director of Washington State University Writing Programs, where he also participates in the development of Virtual WSU. He is co-author of Writing the Information Superhighway, forthcoming from Allyn & Bacon, and Portfolios and College Writing: Theory, Assessment, Instruction, forthcoming from Hampton Press.

Nancy Kaplan has taught writing and media studies at Cornell and the University of Texas at Dallas. She now teaches electronic design and virtual culture in the Institute for Language, Technology and Publications Design at the University of Baltimore. She has published numerous essays on computers and writing and the culture of information systems. In 1987 her revision program, PROSE, co-authored with Joseph Martin and Stuart Davis, won the EDUCOM-NCRIPTAL award for best educational software.

Fred Kemp is an Associate Professor of English at Texas Tech, where he directs an extensive, seven-year-old computer-based instructional program. He is co-founder of the University of Texas Computer Writing Research Lab, the Texas Tech Computer-Based Writing Instruction Research Project, the Alliance for Computers and Writing, and is past chair of the CCCC Committee on Computers and Composition. He is founder and president of The Daedalus Group, Inc.

Paul J. LeBlanc, an innovative and dedicated educator and businessman, is the president of Marlboro College. A tenured Professor of English and former Chair of the Humanities Department at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, Dr. LeBlanc founded Sixth Floor Media, a new multimedia business unit for Boston-based publisher Houghton Mifflin’s College Division. A self described ‘technology critic,’ LeBlanc has been at the forefront of the debate on the role of technology in education, and has authored several books on computers and writing.

Stuart Moulthrop makes hypertexts and teaches design for electronic environments in the Institute for Language, Technology, and Communications Design at the University of Baltimore where he is currently Associate Professor. With Michael Joyce, Nancy Kaplan and John McDaid, he is co-founder of TINAC electronic arts collective. HE is also a partner in the Baltimore Interactive Group, an Internet design firm. Moulthrop has published essays about hypertext and contemporary culture in Postmodern Culture, Mosaid and Writing on the Edge among others. His hypertext fiction, Victory Garden, is represented on the Web.

Susan Romano has just completed her doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research is pitched to teachers interested in reading the rhetorical contours of the electronic discussions they sponsor, in attending to the exclusionary mechanisms at work in discourse, in fostering public ethos among participants, and in developing a rhetorical authority for themselves.

Dickie Selfe, Technical Communication Specialist at Michigan Technological University, directs the Center for Computer-Assisted Language Instruction, a communication-oriented computer facility. He teaches computer-intensive courses in first-year English, publications management, video production, and print production and is currently working on his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication at MTU. His interest is in communication pedagogy and the social, institutional, political, and cultural influences of electronic media on that pedagogy.

Pamela Takayoshi is an Assistant Professor and Director of Computer Assisted Instruction for the English Dept. at University of Louisville. With Kristine Blair, she is currently editing Feminist Cyberscapes: Essays on Gender in Electronic Spaces, forthcoming from Ablex Publishers. Her research interests include women and technology, writing theory and pedagogy in an electronic age, and cultural studies.

Epiphany Institute Leaders:
Janet Auten earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from Bowling Green State University. She has been teaching at American University since 1991, first as an adjunct, now full time, in the College Writing Program and Women’s Studies. She began teaching with computers in the classroom back at Bowling Green, but gradually has been incorporating technology into her teaching assignments via email list and group projects.

Mary Lou Crouch has been teaching advanced composition at GMU since 1985. She gradually incorporated computers into the classroom until her classroom migrated into cyberspace. For an example of her Web based class, check out her home page at <http://mason.gmu.edu/~mcrouch>.

Ruth Overman Fischer, currently completing her Ph. D. in English with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Linguistics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, regularly teaches first year and advanced composition in a computer classroom at George Mason University.

William Fleitz manages American University’s College Writing computer lab, the McCabe Center for Computers and Writing. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English and Linguistics, respectively; his interests include the use of computers in the teaching of English as a second language, and the use of computers in natural language processing. In June, Bill attended the Epiphany Institute, held in Richmond.

Lee Karalis A newcomer to the Epiphany Project, Lee is on the Epiphany committee in the Department of Literature at American University in Washington, DC where she holds a position as full time faculty. Her teaching focus is composition from developmental through freshman levels. Her writing specialty is Sudden Fiction—the area that bridges prose poetry and very short fiction. Her professional interests include composition, Native American literature, Beat literature, and late nineteenth-century women’s literature.

Wilkie Leith has been the George Mason University Writing Center Director for the past ten years. She also teaches advanced composition courses, technical and business writing courses, and literature courses in the computer lab. She is also the assistant director of GMU’s composition program and a member of the GMU Writing-Across-the Curriculum Committee. Her past presentations have included two CCCC pre-convention workshops, two CCCC panels, and presentations at regional and national writing centers associations.

Virginia Montecino is the faculty development specialist for education technology for the College of Arts and Sciences at George Mason University and teaches computer-mediated composition, including distance learning via the Internet <http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin>   said  
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