researcher bios

Holly Hassel is director of composition and Professor of writing studies in the Humanities department at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI. She taught for 16 years at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County, a two-year college in the northern Wisconsin community of Wausau. She has served as editor of Teaching English in the Two-Year College, as chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.  Most recently, she co-edited Transformations: Change Work across Writing Programs, Pedagogies, and Practices with Kirsti Cole (2021), coauthored Materiality and Writing Studies: Aligning Labor, Scholarship, and Teaching with Cassie Phillips (2022), coauthored A Faculty Guidebook for Effective Shared Governance and Service in Higher Education with Kirsti Cole and Joanne Baird Giordano (2023), and coauthored Reaching All Writers: A Pedagogical Guide for the Evolving College writing Classroom (2024). Hassel grew up in Brainerd, MN. 

Joanne Baird Giordano (Salt Lake Community College)has extensive experience coordinating and teaching in writing, developmental reading and writing, and ESL programs at community colleges. She is Chair of the Two-Year College English Association and co-facilitator for the CWPA summer workshop. She has organized national conferences, workshops, and webinars. She has also worked collaboratively on statewide projects for writing placement, developmental education reforms, and general education learning outcomes. Her research focuses on students’ transitions to college reading and writing, along with the experiences and working conditions of two-year college faculty. Giordano coauthored A Faculty Guidebook for Effective Shared Governance and Service in Higher Education with Kirsti Cole and Joanne Baird Giordano (2023), and coauthored Reaching All Writers: A Pedagogical Guide for the Evolving College writing Classroom (2024).