Dear Colleagues,
Please share this email with your students and colleagues about our MA program in Rhetoric, Professional Writing, and Community Engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).
Our interdisciplinary that provides students with a broad background in rhetoric and writing studies while offering students opportunities to apply that knowledge in pedagogical, professional, and/or community spaces.
Learn more by attending our virtual open house Thursday, October 16, 5:30-7pm CDT
https://uwm.edu/graduateschool/virtualinfosession/
Prospective students should register to receive the link to join. Application fee waivers can be offered to attendees.
MA students have been accepted into well-known Ph.D. programs including UW-Madison, Kansas, and Northeastern. Likewise, many of our MA students have also opted to stay in Milwaukee pursuing careers in grant writing, technical editing, marketing and communications, and data analytics. Other students have worked for socially engaged non-profits including The Community (a non-profit advocating to correct the narrative around incarceration), Restoring Lands (a Wisconsin Land Trust organization) as well as at two-year colleges (Madison Community College).
Just this year, the ADP and Wall Street Journal named Milwaukee as the second-best metro area in the U.S. for college grads to secure a job. Many of our MA graduates work for leading industries in the city including Rockwell Automation, Northwestern Mutual, and Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Our innovative curriculum prepares students for pursuing either a PhD or a career outside of academia.
Students who wish to apply to PhD programs receive faculty mentoring to prepare them to teach with AI in the first-year composition classroom, experience collaboration on community projects such as Mapping Racism and Resistance in Milwaukee, ability to participate interdisciplinary collaboratories like the C21 Reproductive Justice working group, and opportunities to apply their classroom learning through a range of internship experiences.
Finally, as we prepare to welcome writing, rhetoric, and technical communication scholars back to our city for CCCC 2027, incoming students will have a chance to attend and present at the conference – adding to the unique professionalization our program supports.
Faculty Research Areas Include:
- AI and writing in FYC
- Public rhetoric
- African American rhetoric
- Cultural rhetorics
- Rhetorics of health and medicine
- Technical editing
- Grant Writing
- Teaching in the two-year colleges
The deadline to apply is December 15, 2025.
Those with questions should contact Dr. Derek Handley (handledg).
Derek G. Handley, Ph.D, MFA
Associate Professor, Department of English
Affiliated Faculty, Department of African and African Diaspora Studies
Affiliated Faculty, Urban Studies Program
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Research Projects:
https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09775-6.html