Irwin Weiser

Ph.D., Indiana University, 1976

Specialization

Rhetoric & Composition

Research Areas:
Composition theory, writing across the curriculum, and writing program administraton

Irwin Weiser is Professor of English and former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. He has been teaching and administering introductory writing programs at Purdue since 1981. In addition to teaching a variety of undergraduate composition courses, he also teaches in the graduate Rhetoric and Composition program. His primary area of interest is composition pedagogy, and he has focused his graduate teaching on topics such as Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Assessment, and Composition Research Methods. He regularly teaches a graduate practicum in the teaching of composition. His recent publications include The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist: Making Knowledge Work and The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection, two collections of new essays defining the intellectual work and research methods of writing program administrators, co-edited with Shirley K Rose (Heinemann, 2002 and 1999); and Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives, a collection of new essays on portfolios at all educational levels co-edited with Kathleen Blake Yancey (Utah State University Press, 1997).