Catch up with faculty members of the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies.
"This is my third year as director of vomposition in WRD. I will be teaching a course on Writing with AI in the spring for the second year, and much of my professional focus outside of first-year writing has been on that. I am also involved with a Gaines Center Fellowship Grant for a Digital/Interactive Pedagogy Cooperative at UK, but we are looking to expand to other Universities."
"I'm an associate professor in WRD, and this summer I wrapped up a term as Director of Environmental and Sustainability Studies. On July 1, I started a new role as director of the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment, a university-wide research institute that spotlights and stimulates research to make the Commonwealth of Kentucky more sustainable and environmentally resilient. This position is natural fit with my teaching and research: I teach courses on environmental rhetoric, technical communication and communication in the natural and social sciences. My research often focuses on overlaps between these areas. I frequently work with local and regional environmental and technical practitioners, including the Kentucky Division for Air Quality, the Kentucky Geological Survey, the University of Kentucky Recycling Program and The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky."
"I spend most of my time working across the university on a lot of different projects. My teaching center, CELT, is now in its 15th year of supporting, partnering and leading on UK's educational mission. Personally, I've been busy working on all things AI, durable skills, TEK (the QEP), accessibility, etc."
"Over the summer, I published issue two of The Canelands magazine, which is affiliated with WRD. The issue's topic was embodiment, and we accepted a rich variety of essays -- everything from birthing triplets to David Bowie to panic attacks to Alzheimer's disease. I had a great student team of editorial assistants and designers. Check out the digital version of the issue.
I also headed to New York City to present my own research on embodiment and well-being at St. John’s University. Visiting the Statue of Liberty for the first time blew me away. She’s so beautiful! It was also powerful to imagine my ancestors’ experience when they came through Ellis Island.
This school year, I’m looking forward to my Rankin Fellowship with the College of Arts and Sciences. I’ll be working on more ways to get WRD students into editing and publishing internships."
"I am in my 17th year of teaching writing at UK. I teach courses in composition, visual rhetoric, technical writing and podcasting. An avid reader, gamer, and meditator, I attended a five-week meditation course in the summer of 2025."
"I'm an author-illustrator of comics for kids. Recently I've been taking online Cherokee language classes. It's really fun to be a student again and finally learn some of the words and phrases my grandmother sometimes tried to teach me."
"This summer, I traveled to Chicago to work with the National Park Service to help develop the Foundation Document for the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. A foundation document identifies a national park unit’s core purpose and significance, its most important resources and values and the interpretive themes that tell its American story."
"I am a professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies; Zantker Professor of Jewish Studies; and James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits Faculty Fellow at the University of Kentucky. I co-direct the University of Kentucky-Jewish Heritage Fund Holocaust Education Initiative, and I am a Stave and Thief certified executive bourbon steward. In 2024, the Bourbon Women Foundation recognized me as a Woman of Whiskey with the Mike Keyes Ally of the Year Award honoring the trailblazing work of the Women in Bourbon Oral History Project, which I founded in 2021. I also received the 2024 Sarah Bennett Holmes Team Award, recognizing its contributions to the Commonwealth. Over the summer, I helped lead orientation for the 25 new teacher leaders in the 2025-2026 UK-JHF Holocaust Education cohort, and I became one of 18 2025-2026 Jewish Digital Storytelling Fellows to continue work on the collaborative webcomic 'America's Chosen Spirit.'"
"My recent focus has centered on refining my current courses and developing new approaches to professional communication that better serve our students’ needs. Specifically, I dedicated time to revising my Technical Writing course (WRD 204), streamlining content for greater efficiency while shifting the core pedagogy to be more reliant on project-based learning models. This change provides students with authentic, hands-on experience and prepares them more effectively for professional communication. I also am developing a new version of the Writing for the Natural Sciences course (WRD 304), developing a more nuanced understanding of the theoretical foundations of the course and the genres students need to learn to work in. Outside of my work in the department, the (hot and dry) summer provided the perfect opportunity to unplug and recharge. My family and I spent weekends exploring Kentucky's great outdoors, finding and enjoying wonderful new trails all over the state from kayaking down the Kentucky River to hiking through Red River Gorge and beyond."
I have been vacillating between several projects -- a book of interconnected short stories called "Burning Daylight," a new documentary titled "No End of Surprise: the Adventures of Thomas McGuane," and a collection of poems, "Now and In The Hour." For fun this summer, I tried to test the theories of Thoreau and Wendell Berry by observation of the unnatural world from the point of view of my swimming pool.
"I've been working on a popular-audience book that explores contemporary rhetorical theory — "This is Not That." It explores common misconceptions about what rhetoric is, what it's not, and what it looks like for people who study and learn about the ways we use language and the ways language uses us. (Find the Substack by searching onling "This is Not That")
Over the summer, I spent a lot of time at the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis. I won the season series for the Major Taylor Racing League and picked up state championships in both the Scratch and Points races. I hope to compete for a national championship on the track next summer."
"I am a lecturer in the department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies. I teaches courses on technical writing, first-year writing and writing in the social sciences. My research and pedagogical interests include incorporating the campus as a classroom in her technical writing courses, promoting resilience strategies for first-year writers and exploring visual rhetoric in 19th century texts and images. I am a faculty adviser for UK’s Clay Target Team and am involved in DanceBlue planning and events. This summer, a new dog joined my family -- an adorable golden retriever puppy named Finn."
"Mike Pennell, professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies. I am currently writing a book that is a rhetorical tracing/analysis of habits and the discourse around habits."
"I recently finished a book manuscript on the rhetorics of disappointment and disillusionment. I am now working on a manuscript about travel and rhetoric."
"I am professor and chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies. I am currently working on a In Memoriam collection for Dr. Bill Hart-Davidson as well as a Handbook of Rhetoric and AI for Bloomsbury."
Dr. Katherine Rogers-Carpenter
"I study science communication and medical history, and health humanities. This semester, several WRD colleagues and I are developing a science writing focus that includes practical courses about writing for scientific and lay audiences. I am currently researching early 20th century blues songs about tuberculosis and hope to write a thought piece about it in the spring.
I am an associate professor in WRD. I primarily teach professional writing, including science and technical writing, as well as a course on style. For the last three years, I have been conducting research on student attitudes toward stylistic instruction. Although it has been commonplace to see stylistic instruction as limiting, my research and experience in the classroom challenge this assumption. In fact, I'd argue that stylistic instruction empowers students and challenges the rise of AI as the most fundamentally human aspect of writing. I presented some of these findings at the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference at the University of New Hampshire this summer. Otherwise, I have a new paper under review, titled "'Picture to yourself 'a city set upon a hill’: Constituting Christian Science as a Liberal Religion in Progressive-Era Apologia."
"I'm the director of the Robert E. Hemenway Writing Center, which provides writing assistance to students, faculty and staff. Over the summer, I led writing workshops for grad students, undergrads and high school students. I also enjoyed hiking in Sedona, Arizona and kayaking on the Kentucky and Dix rivers."
Over the summer, I submitted my article, “Research with formerly incarcerated mothers: Using feminist rhetorical research practices in a carceral context,” to Qualitative Research Journal and received a revise and resubmit from Rhetoric Society Quarterly for my article, “‘We are the mothers’: An Analysis of Incarcerated Mothers’ Ethos Formation.” I also did quite a bit of traveling. I traveled to Denver to visit family and attend my niece's first trip to a waterpark. I went on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico; Roatan, Honduras; and Belize City, Belize for my mom's 60th birthday. I went to Tampa, Florida, with my childhood friend for my birthday. And I visited St. Thomas with my sister and cousins for our annual cousin's trip. Right as the semester was starting, I submitted another article, "“Black Women’s Bourbon Rhetorics: Restructuring Seat at the Table Logics,” which I co-authored with Jan Fernheimer and Doug Boyd to Peitho."
When I am not teaching or writing, I enjoy climbing and doing partnered acrobatics (check out Circus Club on campus, y'all!).