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Stacy Wittstock
Assistant Professor of English, Writing Center Director
Bio
Dr. Stacy Wittstock is an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of the Marist Writing Center. Dr. Wittstock's work focuses on a range of areas related to writing assessment, writing programs, and writing center administration with a goal of developing research-based practices and heuristics aimed at dismantling harmful institutional and ideological structures affecting marginalized students and faculty in US colleges and universities. Her passion for educational justice emerged from her post-college work with AmeriCorps as an after-school coordinator in a low-income middle school in her hometown of Spokane, WA. Her experience as a writing center tutor working with struggling undergraduate writers at Washington State University inspired a career centered on leveraging sustainable writing support to advance access to higher education for all students. In her teaching, Dr. Wittstock encourages students to draw from their existing literacy practices in their writing, including the knowledge, languages, and ways of understanding the world they have cultivated as members of increasingly diverse and digital communities.
In 2022, Dr. Wittstock received an honorable mention from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) Graduate Research Award for her dissertation research on the impact of a high-stakes timed writing exam on students and faculty in a cross-institutional developmental writing program. Her work has been featured in Research in the Teaching of English, the Journal of Basic Writing, and Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. Dr. Wittstock is also an Assistant Editor with the Journal of Writing Assessment and co-editor of the JWA Reading List. Before moving to Marist, Dr. Wittstock was the Assistant Director of First-Year Composition and an Assistant Professor-in-Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She has also taught and coordinated writing centers at Washington State University and the University of California, Davis.
Education
PhD Education with a Designated Emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies, University of California, Davis, 2022
MA English, Washington State University, 2013
BA English and Music, Pacific Lutheran University, 2010
Research Interests and Specializations
Writing Assessment | Writing Program Administration | Writing Placement | Writing Centers | Higher Education Faculty Training and Mentorship | Contingent Employment and Teacher Labor in Higher Education | Anti-Racist Writing Pedagogies and Practices | Institutional Ethnography | Qualitative Research Methods
Selected Publications
Constructivist Writing Placement: Repositioning Agency for More Equitable Placement through Collaborative Writing Placement Practices. College Composition and Communication. (forthcoming, 2025). With Jennifer Burke Reifman, Tricia Serviss, Dan Melzer, and Beth Pearsall.
Gatekeeping by Design: The Use of an Exit Exam as a "Boss Text" in a Basic Writing Course. Journal of Basic Writing, 41(1-2), 40-75. (2022). https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/jbw/v41n1-2/wittstock.pdf
Making What We Know Explicit: Perspectives from Graduate Writing Consultants on Supporting Graduate Writers. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 19(2). (2022). With Lisa Sperber, Gabi Kirk, Kristin McCarty, Karen de Sola-Smith, Jasmine Wade, Mitchell Simon, & Lauren Fink. https://www.praxisuwc.com/192-wittstock-et-al
Teaching with Digital Peer Response: Four Cases of Technology Appropriation, Resistance, and Transformation. Research in the Teaching of English, 54(2), 161-182. (2019). With Kory Ching. http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/RTE/0542-nov2019/RTE0542Nov19Teaching.pdf
Selected Presentations
"Pile On More, Right?": Exploring Faculty Perceptions of the Labor and Resources Needed to Teach in the Context of Generative AI. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Baltimore, MD. (2025, April). With Amy Lynch-Biniek.
Writing Placement, Productive Misalignment, and Abundance: Constructivist Writing Placement in Theory and Practice. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Spokane, WA. (2024, April). With Jennifer Burke Reifman, Dan Melzer, Beth Pearsall, and Tricia Serviss.
Questioning Assumptions about DSP and Student Agency: A Proposal for a Constructivist Writing Placement Framework. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Reno, NV. (2023, July). With Jennifer Burke Reifman, Dan Melzer, Beth Pearsall, and Tricia Serviss. (2023, July).
Imagining Better Futures: Critical Strategies and Frameworks for Institutional Change. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago, IL. (2023, February). With Maggie Fernandez and Wilfredo Flores.
Awards and Honors
Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) Graduate Research Award, Honorable Mention | May 2022
Media Links
Episode 140: Stacy Wittstock. Pedagogue Podcast. (2023, February). https://www.pedagoguepodcast.com/blog/episode-140-stacy-wittstock
Episode 13: Stacy Wittstock. Tell Me More Podcast. (2021, December). https://www.tellmemorepod.com/episodes/episode-13-stacy-wittstock
