Mentorship Information

Each year, the department offers a handful of graduate research and graduate teaching mentorships, contingent upon Graduate School funding and applications from sponsoring faculty members. These mentorships allow interested English MA and Creative Writing MFA students to work closely on a research project with a faculty member or to team-teach with a faculty member an undergraduate course in literature, rhetoric, or creative writing while receiving training in course design, pedagogy, and assessment. Interested students should contact the graduate program manager for details about specific mentorships and their application deadlines.

Mentorships: Spring 2026

Makayla Steiner

Teaching Mentorship, 10 hours per week

I would like to have a graduate student work with me on my English 303 course this spring. The course will begin with students reading and analyzing a literary text (typically a novel or a book of poetry) and then spending the rest of the term crafting a piece of original literary criticism. The course is process-based and will include short writing exercises from which students will produce and revise several drafts of their writing until they have completed a full, revised, peer-reviewed essay. They will also be required to deliver a verbal presentation of their essay (usually in 3-minute thesis format).

Mentorships: Spring & Summer 2026

Jarron Slater

Research Mentorship, 10 hours per week

I'm working on an edited collection that celebrates the centennial of the first theoretical book of Kenneth Burke, who has been called the greatest rhetorician of the 20th century. My edited collection is under contract with Parlor Press, to be published in 2031. Because of how important this centennial is, the collection will include QR codes to a companion website with interviews. I need someone to edit and transcribe the interviews. I also need someone to design and develop a companion website for the centennial volume. I may also need another interview or two, and I might also need help editing 1-2 of the essays in the volume.

Jon Ostenson

Research Mentorship, 7 hours per week

The student will gain valuable experience in using theories about subjectivity and adolescence as a construct to explore representations of war in young adult literature and how they fit with concerns about growth and maturation in this body of literature. We will also work to bring an understanding of agency infused with a gospel perspective to the conceptualizations of growth and maturity in young adult literature. This work will familiarize the student with major theorists in young adult literature (including Maria Nikolajeva, Sophia Sarigianides, and Roberta Trites). In addition, this student will work with an undergrad and me to build a comprehensive digital bibliography of young adult literature about war. They will gain important skills in searching databases about these books and establishing criteria to build the list of books. In addition, this bibliography will feature in a book project I'm proposing, and the graduate student would help to write the chapter describing the process of developing the bibliography, gaining experience in academic writing and (hopefully) a writing credit.

Mentorships: Fall 2026

Shannon Stimpson

Teaching Mentorship, 10 hours per week

English 302: Writing with Style: The student I work with will receive practical mentoring in teaching a course on style and rhetorical choice in writing, including curricular design, lesson planning, and teaching opportunities. For students who plan to teach post-graduation or apply to graduate programs, this kind of mentorship will help to diversify their teaching portfolio.

Jarron Slater

Teaching Mentorship, 8 hours per week

English 212, Rhetoric and Civilization 2 is a GE course that studies how humans communicate, influence, and persuade one another from the early modern period to today. We study, discuss, write about, and apply in our own lives the theories and principles of effective communication from the last 500 years. It's a great class, and I'd love to share it with a grad student.

Sharon Harris

Teaching Mentorship, 10 hours per week

ENGL 450R, Studies in Literary Criticism and Theory, is an upper-division course on performativity that I have taught previously. Seminar participants become acquainted with the critical and theoretical genealogy of performativity, including how the theory has changed and been redefined over the past sixty-nine years. They read theoretical texts and produce class presentations, notes, argument syntheses, and a final conference paper that incorporates ideas of performativity into a literary topic of their choosing.

I anticipate that the student will assist me by attending and contributing to class, occasionally being in front of the class or modeling one assignment. This mentoring relationship includes helping to organize the classes, grading, student conferencing, and corresponding with students. Dr. Harris and the mentee will meet at least once every two weeks to plan and exchange feedback. This role requires someone who is thoughtful, articulate, interested in students, and well-organized.