Syracuse University Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Program

We are so excited to celebrate these three new PhDs.
Congratulations Drs. Lerie Grabriel, Zakery R. Muñoz, and Gabriella Wilson!!

As the academic year comes to a close, we want to express our gratitude for the CCR Writing Group, which has provided consistent time and space (and snacks) for fostering interdisciplinary connection and support.

Thanks most especially to faculty sponsor Kevin Browne and to CCR doctoral student and Writing Center intern Urmi Parekh (back, left) for making this important community resource happen!

The CCR community past and present was well represented at CCCC in Baltimore, MD, this month!

It was great to reconnect, catch up, and celebrate one another’s work.

We’re proud to annouce that this year two major awards were granted to members of CCR community. Congratulations Seth Davis and also to Lerie Gabriel and Alicia Hatcher!

Images, in order:

1) Seth E. Davis (center, with L-R Patrick W. Berry and Gwendolyn Pough) won the 2025 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Q***r Scholarship’s Nontraditional Scholarly Text Award for the YouTube documentary, Unbuckling the Bible Belt: Black Q***r Cruising in Memphis.

2-3) Alicia K. Hatcher (L) and Lerie Gabriel—who defended her dissertation this spring—received the “Best Article on Technology and Curriculum” award in the Technical and Scientific Communication category. Their article was published in Technical Communication Quarterly, 2024.

4) L-R: Nicole Gonzales Howell, Seth Davis, Romeo Garcia

5) L-R: Alicia Hatcher, Reva Sias, Lerie Gabriel, Gabriella Wilson

6) L-R: Nicole Gonzales Howell, Kate Navickas, Laura Davies, Tracy Carrick

7) Joe Wilson and Mandy Macklin

8) L-R: Karrieann Soto-Vega, Seth Davis, Romeo Garcia, Patrick W. Berry, Tamara Isaak

9) Nicole Gonzales Howell presented “Effective and Ethical Approaches to Sentence- Level Feedback on Student Writing,” “AI as B-side: Four Creative Takes on AI in the First Year Writing,” and “Reworking Labor- Based Grading Contracts for Historically Marginalized Students.”

10) Kate Navickas and Laura Davies co-presented “AI & Writing: Collaborative FYW Curriculum Taught at Two Schools.” They will have a course design article published in Composition Studies in fall 2025.

11) L-R: Eileen Schell, Kate Navickas, Jessica Pauszek

12) L-R: Missy Watson, Kate Navickas, Nicole Howell

Thank you, Dr. Michael Faris, for sharing your scholarship with us!

Faris is department chair and associate professor in the department of English at Texas Tech University, and the editor of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.

During our two-day, annual 2025 Spring Conference, Faris offered a well-attended lecture, “Teaching with Despair: Rhetorical Education in Nihilistic Times,” and then a half-day workshop “ I Feel Sh*tty: Working Through and With Negative Affects in Rhetoric and Writing Classes.”

We’re looking forward to seeing CCR alumni, current students, and graduate faculty at CCCC!

The CCR community will be gathering on Thursday evening from 6:30 – 8:30 at the Pendulum Bar, which is located in the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor. Come have a drink on us and catch up with folks!

Are you presenting at the conference? Feel free to share your paper title and session information in the comments!

Congrats to PhD student Karisa Bridgelal, who has been selected as CCR’s Outstanding TA Award Recipient for 2025. These awards are reserved for teaching assistants who have made truly distinguished contributions to teaching at Syracuse University.

Congratulations, Azadeh, on your honorable mention for the prestigious Graduate Dean’s Award, and on your recent workshop and exhibition at Georgetown University: “The Stories We Told Ourselves: Community Narratives About ‘The War on Terror’.”

Well done Lerie!

CCR PhD candidate Lerie Gabriel, a Humanities Center Dissertation Fellow for 2024-2025, spoke about her dissertation, "Equitable, Inclusive, and Accessible: DEIA-driven Revisions of a Core Professional Writing Course at a Private University" at a recent Meet the Scholars coffee hour.

The first RSA event of the year! Syracuse's RSA chapter consists of graduate students from both Composition and Cultural Rhetoric and Comunication and Rhetorical Studies. Chapter programming aims to foster community across these two departments and give us a chance to support one another's success.

Thanks to CCR chapter officers, Brenna Telames Williams and Trevor Bleick, for their instrumental role in making this collaboration happen!