Allen Brizee, Ph.D.

I am an associate professor of rhetoric and writing and the writing program administrator (WPA) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As WPA, I am responsible for supervising and assessing developmental reading and writing, Composition I and Composition II. For almost thirty years, I have taught writing, rhetoric, and professional communication as a faculty member, graduate TA, and writing center tutor at an assortment of colleges and universities. More recently, I have been teaching a course in dark academia.

I have also served in higher education administrative positions while co-authoring the award-winning first-year writing textbook Read, Reason, Write: An Argument Text and Reader published by McGraw-Hill Education.

Along the way, I co-authored Partners in Literacy: A Writing Center Model for Civic Engagement now published by Bloomsbury Academic and co-edited Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education published by Apprentice House Press. My work has also been featured in academic journals and edited collections.

My monograph, Rhetoric of the Middle Way in Isocrates, Queen Elizabeth I, and the Church of England, is under contract with Bloomsbury Academic.

Outside the academy I have worked as a technical writer for the federal government and as an independent contractor. In 2024, I began writing fiction, which was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everyone else.

I enjoy teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and am deeply committed to public digital humanities and community-based work.

Purdue University
Ph.D. in English. 5/8/10. Primary Area: Rhetoric and Composition. Secondary Areas: Technical Communication and Public Rhetoric. Dissertation: College-Community Partnerships: Designing a Sustainable and Participatory Literacy Program. Chair: Linda Bergmann. Readers: Patricia Sullivan, Richard Johnson-Sheehan, Tony Silva

Virginia Tech
M.A. in English, Composition and Technical Communication Focus. 5/10/03. Master’s Thesis: Teaching Visual Literacy and Document Design in First-Year Composition. Chair: Eva Brumberger. Readers: Paul Heilker, Edd Sewell

B.A. in English, Technical Communication Focus. Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. 5/20/00

Northern Virginia Community College
A.S. in General Studies. Cum Laude. 9/1/98

My research focuses on writing pedagogy, writing program administration, public digital humanities, and rhetorical theory. I am informed by theories from classical rhetoric and engaged scholarship. In classical rhetoric, I am interested in Isocratic collaborative rhetoric and his epistemology of engagement as he prepared his students to use philosophy in a practical way and develop phronesis (practical wisdom.) In my publications involving Isocrates, I have drawn connections between his idea of phronesis to the humanistic tradition and engaged scholarship.

I am also interested in Ernest L. Boyer’s model of engaged scholarship that combines teaching, research, and service to focus them on community-based learning and research. Like Isocrates, Boyer’s model produces an epistemology of engagement whereby rhetors are what they do. From public digital humanities, I am interested in Robert Asen’s model of discursive knowledge building and networked public spheres. Asen’s model provides a practical pathway for activist-scholars to explore as they “invent and circulate counterdiscourses of their identities, interests, and needs (“Critical Engagement” 138).

Lastly, my work in writing program administration pulls from all these theories, as well as from the equity-focused approach to administration and assessment. Among other concepts, the equity-focused approach acknowledges the potential biases that can develop from the assessment process itself and recommends the disaggregation of data and critical reflection on the evaluation model used, as well as a contextualized, mixed-methods design for evaluating student learning.

Books Authored
Brizee, Allen, and Dorothy U. Seyler. Read, Reason, Write: An Argument Text and Reader. 14th ed. McGraw-Hill Education, forthcoming in January 2027.

Brizee, Allen, and Jaclyn M. Wells. Partners in Literacy: A Writing Center Model for Civic Engagement. Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.

• Reviewed in Community Literacy Studies 12.2, 2018
• Reviewed in Composition Studies 45.1, 2017

Books Edited
Pascual-Ferrá, Paola and Allen Brizee. Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education. 3rd ed. Apprentice House, 2016.

Journal Articles
Brizee Allen. “Theorizing Public Digital Humanities: A Model for Collaborative Knowledge Production.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America vol. 140, no. 1, 2025, pp. 126-135.

Brizee, Allen, Stephanie Hurter Brizee, Colten Biro, Meha Gupta. “John W. O’Malley as a Guide for Eloquentia Perfecta, Community-Engaged Work, and Graduate Education.” Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal vol. 11, no. 2, 2022, Article 12.

Gannett, Cinthia, John Brereton, Allen Brizee. “John W. O’Malley: Scholar of Eloquence and Eloquent Scholar.” Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal vol 11., no. 2, 2022, Article 11.

Brizee, Allen. “Reimagining the Humanistic Tradition: Using Isocratic Philosophy, Ignatian Pedagogy, and Civic Engagement to Journey with Youth and Walk with the Excluded.” Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal vol. 11, no. 1, 2022, pp. 2-25.

Brizee, Allen, Kate Figiel-Miller, Marianna E. Carlucci. “Living, Learning, Serving: Outcomes of Combining a Living-Learning Program with Service-Learning Courses.” Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal vol. 11, no. 1, 2022, pp. 51-74.

Brizee, Allen. “What Happens When We Fail?: Developing Resilient Community-Based Research.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication vol. 50, no. 4, 2020, pp. 339-375.

Brizee, Allen, Paola Pascual-Ferrá, and Giuliana Caranante. “High-Impact Civic Engagement: Outcomes of Community-Based Research in Technical Writing Courses.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, vol. 50, no. 3, 2019, pp. 224-251. A Top Paper Award in Civic Engagement, 2017 National Communication Association Convention.

Brizee, Allen. “Using Isocrates to Teach Technical Communication and Civic Engagement.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication vol. 45, no. 2, 2015, pp. 134-165.

Brizee, Allen, and Joe Langmead. “Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Fostering Professional Communication Skills in a Graduate Accounting Certificate Program.” Across the Disciplines: A Journal of Language, Learning, and Academic Writing vol. 11, no. 1, 2014.

Brizee, Allen. “Toward Participatory Civic Engagement: Findings and Implications of a Three-Year Community-Based Research Study.” Computers and Composition: An International Journal vol. 32, 2014, pp. 22-40.

Brizee, Allen, Morgan Sousa, and Dana L. Driscoll. “Writing Centers and Students with Disabilities: the User-Centered Approach, Participatory Design, and Empirical Research as Collaborative Methodologies.” Computers and Composition: An International Journal vol. 29, no. 4, 2012, pp. 341-366.

Salvo, Michael, Jingfang Ren, Tammy Conard-Salvo, and Allen Brizee. “Usability Research in the Writing Lab: Sustaining Discourse and Pedagogy.” Computers and Composition: An International Journal vol. 26, no. 2, 2009, pp. 107-121.

Brizee, Allen. “Stasis Theory as a Strategy for Workplace Teaming and Decision Making.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication vol. 38, no. 4, 2008, pp. 363-385. Nominated for the 2009 NCTE Scientific and Technical Communication Award.

Book Chapters
Bergmann, Linda, Allen Brizee, and Jaclyn Wells. “The Engaged Dissertation: Three Points of View.” Collaborative Futures: Critical Reflections on Publicly Active Graduate Education, Eds. Amanda Gilvin, Georgia M. Roberts, and Craig Martin. Graduate School Press, Syracuse University, 2012.

Driscoll, Dana, Michael Salvo, Allen Brizee, and Morgan Sousa. “Usability Research and User-Centered Theory for 21st Century OWLs.” The Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the New Nature of Business Practices. Eds. Kirk St. Amant, Pavel Zemlansky. Idea Group Publishing, 2008.

Johnson-Sheehan, Richard. Writing Proposals: Rhetoric for Managing Change. 2nd ed. Longman, 2007 (Allen Brizee assisted in revising the chapter on stasis theory).

Conference Proceedings
Brizee, Allen. “Participatory Civic Engagement: Usability Research Methods as a Model for Connected Knowing.” Proceedings for the 2012 International Association for Research in Service-Learning and Community Engagement Conference, September 23-25, Baltimore, MD (http://www.researchslce.org/).

Book Reviews
Brizee, Allen. Review of Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance by Jim Thatcher et al. Technical Communication, Journal of the Society for Technical Communication vol. 54, no. 2, 2007, pp. 254-256.

Invited Publications
Brizee, Allen. “Engaged Scholarship: Using Iterative Design and Empirical Methods to Guide Community Work in Baltimore,” response to Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education vol. 53, 2018.

Brizee, Allen, and Jenn Fishman “From Class to Community: EP 2.0 and the New Media Legacy of Jesuit Education.” Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education vol. 43, 2013, pp. 31-33.

Works in Progress
Brizee, Allen. Rhetoric of the Middle Way in Isocrates, Queen Elizabeth I, and the Church of England. In this book project, I explore the influences of the Greek philosopher Isocrates on the writing and policies of Queen Elizabeth I and her ability to find common ground between British Catholics and Protestants to reform the Church of England in 1559. With today’s polarized politics and society, this project is timely and valuable because it discusses ways to bridge belief systems using rhetorical theory and writing pedagogy. A unique feature of this project is the model I use to analyze the works of Isocrates and Queen Elizabeth I: a mixture of rhetorical theory, grounded theory, and AI. Under contract with Bloomsbury Academic.

Brizee, Allen. “Antiracist Work in Writing Program Administration and Writing Across the Curriculum.” In this co-authored book chapter, I explain the antiracist and equity-focused initiatives that I completed at Saint Louis University as part of the new core curriculum. As the inaugural Writing Across the Curriculum director, I initiated cross-campus, cross-disciplinary team building, faculty development, and writing-intensive course assessment in addition to launching a digital public humanities project that fosters antiracist and equity-focused college-community collaboration: The Saint Louis Story: Learning and Living Racial Justice. In press with Parlor Press.

Public Digital Humanities and Other Publications
Brizee, Allen, Stephanie Hurter Brizee, Colten Biro. The Saint Louis Story: Learning and Living Racial Justice. This public digital humanities project focuses on the history of slavery and systemic racism in Missouri and St. Louis. The project is funded by multiple grants totaling over $20,000: https://www.thesaintlouisstory.org/, 2023.

Brizee, Allen, Stephanie Hurter Brizee. The Baltimore Story: Learning and Living Racial Justice. This is a public digital Humanities and civic engagement project on the history of slavery and systemic racism in Maryland and Baltimore. The project is funded by a $30,000 McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation grant: https://thebaltimorestory.org/, 2019.

Brizee, Allen. “Harbors and Seas: The Both/And of Writing Center Work,” summary of the 2010 Keynote Address for the International Writing Centers Association-National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing Conference in the Purdue Writing Lab Alumni Annotations, spring 2011.

Saint Louis University 2024-2025 Fund for Intellectual Renewal and Enrichment (FIRE) for Dr. M.L. Rio Dark Academia Lecture, $2,000

Saint Louis University 2024-2025 Co-Curricular Fund request for Dr. M.L. Rio English 3212 and English Major/Minor Discussion of Dark Academia, $500

Saint Louis University Walter J. Ong, S.J., Center for Digital Humanities Grant for The Color Line of St. Louis: An Immersive Journey through Urban Black History, 2024: $5,000

Saint Louis University Mellon Award for The Color Line of St. Louis: An Immersive Journey through Urban Black History, 2024: $4,200

Saint Louis University Stolle Award for The Color Line of St. Louis: An Immersive Journey through Urban Black History, 2024: $1,000

Saint Louis University College of Arts and Sciences Excellent Instructional Materials in Research Award for Read, Reason, Write: An Argument Text and Reader 13e published by McGraw-Hill, 2024: $1,000

Saint Louis University English Department Spaulding Literary Essay 1st place for “Effects of Marijuana Legalization on the St. Louis Community” as instructor for John Prusak, 2023

The Saint Louis Story: Learning and Living Racial Justice digital public humanities project funded by a Beaumont Scholarship Research Award, 2023: $8,000

The Baltimore Story: Learning and Living Racial Justice digital public humanities project funded by a McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation grant, 2021: $30,000

Loyola University Maryland Senior Sabbatical Research Leave fall 2018

Loyola University Maryland Summer Research Grant, 2018: $4,000

National Communication Association Conference top paper award in civic engagement for “High-Impact Civic Engagement,” 2017

York Road Literacy and Employment Initiative Community Workshop Grant through the Loyola Clinical Centers, 2017: $4,000

Loyola University Maryland Faculty Award for Excellence in Engaged Scholarship, 2015

Loyola University Maryland Summer Research Grant for the York Road Literacy and Employment Initiative, 2014: $4,000

Kolvenbach Summer Research Grant for the York Road Literacy and Employment Initiative, Faculty Mentor for Undergraduate Research Assistant, Giuliana Caranante, 2014: $500

Tenure-Track Sabbatical fall 2014 for the York Road Literacy and Employment Initiative

Dr. Janice (Ginny) Redish Lecture Grant, Loyola Center for the Humanities, Loyola Center for Lifelong Learning, Loyola Writing Department 2012: $825

Loyola University Maryland Summer Research Grant, 2012: $4,000

Loyola University Maryland Summer Research Grant, 2011: $4,000

Loyola University Maryland Summer Research Grant, 2010: $4,000

Purdue University Research Foundation Grant for Dissertation Work, 2009 – 2010: College-Community Partnerships: Designing a Sustainable and Participatory Literacy Program: $16,795

East Central Writing Centers Association Leader of the Year, 2009: $200

Janice M. Lauer Award for Excellence in Dissertation Work, 2009: $500

Purdue University Writing Lab Outstanding Tutor Award, 2007 – 2008: $100

Introductory Composition at Purdue (ICaP) 106/108 Showcase, 2008, Best Original Project (honorable mention), as instructor with Michael Reddy

Crouse Scholarship in Professional Writing: Emergent Scholar at Purdue, 2008: $5,000

Purdue University Literary Awards: Kneale Award for Pedagogy, second place, 2008, for “Public Rhetorics in Professional Writing Pedagogy”: $100

Purdue University Student Engagement Grant for the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST), with Jaclyn Wells, 2007: $1,500

Purdue University Liberal Arts Community Engagement (PLACE) Grant for the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST), with Jaclyn Wells, 2007: $1,600

Introductory Composition at Purdue (ICaP) 106/108 Showcase, 2007, Best Original Project (first place), Best Display (first place) as instructor with Sandeep Suresh: $200

Purdue University Literary Awards: Kneale Award for Pedagogy, first place, 2007, for “Using Stasis in Professional Writing Pedagogy: Ancient Origins, Contemporary Applications”: $200

Crouse Scholarship in Professional Writing: Promising Scholar at Purdue, 2006: $5,000

Featured Crouse Recipient in the Purdue University College of Liberal Arts Annual Report, 2007

University of Maryland Professional Writing Program Contest best project in Technical Writing for “Methods of Restoring Paint Branch Creek” as instructor with Leigh Arscott and Casey Jordan, 2006

Quintilian Award for Teaching, Department of English, Purdue University, 2005

Distinguished Service-Learning Award, Virginia Tech, 2000, 2001

Robert H. Dedman, Jr. Prize for Excellence in Professional Writing, second place, Virginia Tech, 2000

Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR: 7/1/26 – present.

• ENGL 10203, Composition II
• RHET 71073, Composition Theory

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, Frederick Community College, Frederick, MD: 10/1/26 – 12/17/25.

• Composition I
• Composition II

Associate Professor of English, Department of English, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO: 7/1/21 – 6/11/25.

• ENGL 3859, Writing Consulting: Forms, Theories, Practice, writing intensive, service-learning
• ENGL 3212, Dark Academia, writing intensive
• ENGL 3210, Fantasy and Literature: Dark Academia
• ENGL 1900, Advanced Strategies of Rhetoric and Research: Conflict, Social Justice, and Rhetoric

Associate Professor of Writing, Writing Department, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD: 7/1/10 – 6/30/21. Tenured and promoted 4/28/16.

• GB767, Professional Communication, graduate course in the Sellinger Business School
• WR403, Writing Internship, one credit
• WR402, Writing Internship, three credits
• WR387, Writing for the Gaming Industry
• WR326, Technical Writing, service-learning
• WR325, Professional Writing, service-learning
• WR305, Writing for the Web and Social Media, service-learning
• WR220, Introduction to Rhetoric, service-learning, domestic diversity designation
• WR100, Effective Writing, Loyola core course, domestic diversity designation
• University Summer Business Writing Professional Development Workshop for Faculty and Staff

Purdue University Writing Lab Tutor, Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN: 8/20/07 – 6/1/09.

• Tutored undergraduate and graduate students in writing across the disciplines.

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN: 8/25/05 – 6/1/09.

• Composition
• Business Writing
• Professional writing.

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC), VA: 5/16/05 – 7/27/05. Alexandria and Annandale campuses.

• Composition I
• Composition II

Instructor of Technical Writing, Department of English, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Professional Writing Program: 9/2/03 – 5/20/05.

• Technical Writing

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, NVCC, Annandale, VA: 5/18/04 – 6/24/04.

• Composition I
• Composition II

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, The George Washington University, Washington, DC: 9/3/03 – 12/17/03.

• Composition

Composition, ESL, and Developmental Tutor, Department of English, NVCC, Alexandria, VA: 5/22/03 – 7/10/03.

• Composition I
• ESL and Developmental Reading and Writing

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, NVCC, Annandale, VA: 9/1/02 – 12/20/02.

• Composition I
• Composition II

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA: 9/1/00 – 5/20/02.

• Composition

UALR Compliance Training, 2026

Canvas Accessibility Compliance for Canvas, DesignPLUS, UDOIT Advantage

CITI Course in the Protection of Human Research Subjects, Certified: 2006, 2022

Preventing Harassment and Discrimination: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Loyola White Accountability Group Participant: 2020

Safe Church Training, Episcopal Diocese of Baltimore, Certified: 2019

Loyola Workplace Harassment Training, Re-certified: 2019

Racial Justice Training, Baltimore Racial Justice Action: 2018

Safe Zone Ally at Loyola, Certified: 2014

• NIH Human Research Participants Training, Certified: 2011
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Certified: 2005, 2007

• Societas Isocratica
• Conference on Writing Program Administration
• Modern Language Association
• Association for Writing Across the Curriculum
• Rhetoric Society of America

Department

• Chair, Composition Committee
• Member, Assessment Committee
• Member, Strategic Planning Committee

College

• Member, Assessment Committee

Discipline

• Review Board Member, WAC Journal
• Editorial Board Member, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Current Positions

Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR: 7/1/26 – present. Teach graduate and undergraduate courses

Co-Author of Read, Reason, Write: An Argument Text and Reader 13th edition, McGraw-Hill Education with Dorothy Seyler: 6/1/16 – present

Previous Positions

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, Frederick Community College, Frederick, MD: 10/1/26 – 12/17/25.

Associate Professor of English, Department of English, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO: 7/1/21 – 6/11/25.

Associate Professor of Writing, Writing Department, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD: 7/1/10 – 6/30/21. Tenured and promoted 4/28/16.

Purdue University Writing Lab Tutor, Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN: 8/20/07 – 6/1/09.

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN: 8/25/05 – 6/1/09.

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC), VA: 5/16/05 – 7/27/05.

Instructor of Technical Writing, Department of English, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Professional Writing Program: 9/2/03 – 5/20/05.

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, NVCC, Annandale, VA: 5/18/04 – 6/24/04.

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, The George Washington University, Washington, DC: 9/3/03 – 12/17/03.

Composition, ESL, and Developmental Tutor, Department of English, NVCC, Alexandria, VA: 5/22/03 – 7/10/03.

Instructor of Composition, Department of English, NVCC, Annandale, VA: 9/1/02 – 12/20/02.

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA: 9/1/00 – 5/20/02.

Leadership and Administrative Appointments

University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Writing Program Administrator (WPA): 7/1/26 – present

Saint Louis University

• Director of the Walter J. Ong, S.J., Center for Digital Humanities: 9/1/24 – 6/2/25
• Director of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC): 7/1/21 – 6/2/25

Loyola University Maryland, Faculty Director for Community-Engaged Learning and Scholarship, Center for Community, Service, and Justice (CCSJ): 7/1/19 – 6/30/21.