Ann Blakeslee

Incoming Chair
Eastern Michigan University
www.emich.edu/ccw

Ann Blakeslee is Professor of English and Director of the Office of Campus and Community Writing at Eastern Michigan University. She coordinates all campus-wide and community-based writing initiatives, including the University Writing Center; Writing Across the Curriculum; Disciplinary Literacies, which brings together secondary and post-secondary instructors to study writing across disciplines; the Eastern Michigan Writing Project; the Family Literacy Initiative; YpsiWrites (https://www.emich.edu/ccw/ypsi-writes/index.php), a new community writing center in collaboration with 826michigan and the Ypsilanti District Library; and Cognitive Coaching and Adaptive Schools. She also has cultivated and coordinates collaborations with secondary writing centers and numerous organizations, including Upward Bound, Habitat for Humanity, Washtenaw Literacy, the Washtenaw Intermediate School District, A2Ethics, and Bright Futures.

Blakeslee earned her Ph.D. in Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University and her Masters in Technical and Scientific Communication at Miami University. Her career spans 35 years, and she has taught numerous courses in rhetoric and composition and technical communication. She also has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies at EMU, Co-Chair of General Education Implementation, and Graduate and Writing Program Coordinator. She has participated in and led numerous assessment initiatives, including a recent initiative to assess writing-intensive classes.

Blakeslee has authored a book on audience and scientific writing (Erlbaum, 2001) and a first and second edition of a textbook on qualitative research methods, along with Cathy Fleischer. Blakeslee’s scholarship focuses on writing in the disciplines (she recently co-authored, with nursing faculty, articles on synthesis and on the development of a nursing writing class), disciplinary enculturation, audience, research methods and ethics, workplace writing, technical communication, and now community literacy and writing. She has been recognized for her scholarly achievements with the Society for Technical Communication Ken Rainey Award for Excellence in Research in Technical Communication and with the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Fellows Award.

Blakeslee serves on the executive committee of the Association of Writing Across the Curriculum, and she served on the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing executive committee for 20 years. She has chaired numerous national committees.

Areas of Specialization

Writing in the disciplines, community writing centers, writing assessment, secondary and post-secondary partnerships, WAC-based writing centers, cognitive coaching, general education reform and assessment, faculty professional development and learning, development of WAC programs, graduate student writing

Geographic Consulting Experience

US, Canada, Europe