Patricia Bizzell

Patricia Bizzell, Ph.D. is Professor of English and Chairperson of the English Department at College of the Holy Cross, United States,where she has taught since 1978. She founded and directed the Writer's Workshop, a peer tutoring facility, and a writing-across-the-curriculum program. She has directed the College Honors and English Honors programs. She teaches first-year composition, rhetoric and public speaking, nineteenth-century American literature and women's literature.

A scholar and author, Bizzell has authored or co-authored half a dozen books, written dozens of articles and book chapters, written more than a dozen book reviews and review essays, and presented a large number of papers at academic conferences. Her curriculum vitae is available online.

Bizzell is the subject of a profile chapter in the forthcoming book Women's Ways of Making It in Rhetoric and Composition, eds. Michelle Ballif, Diane Davis, and Roxanne Mountford (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum). Her research interests include the question of how the increasing diversification of academic discourses affects the teaching of writing to college students.

Professional experience

Teaching positions

• Chair, Department of English, College of the Holy Cross, 2001-2005
• Professor of English, Holy Cross, 1988–present: composition, rhetoric, American Literature
• Director, English Honors Program, 1999-2000
• Director, College Honors Program, 1994-1998
• Director, Writing Programs, 1981-1994 (Writer's Workshop and Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program)
• Associate Professor, Holy Cross, 1981-1988
• Assistant Professor, Holy Cross, 1978–81
• Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, 1975–78, and Director, Remedial Writing Program, 1975–77, and Teacher Training Program, 1977–78

Professional affiliations and activities

• President, Rhetoric Society of America, 2004-2006
• Program Chair, RSA 2004 biennial national conference
• President, Board of Directors, Alliance of Rhetoric Societies, 2006 (ARS)

Academic background

• Ph.D. in English Literature, Rutgers University, 1975.
• B.A. summa cum laude, Wellesley College, 1970.
• Enrolled in the M.J.L.S. (Masters, Jewish Liberal Studies) program at Hebrew College

Prizes and external grants received

• Winner, National Council of Teachers of English Outstanding Book Award, 1992, for The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present (co-authored with Bruce Herzberg).
• Winner, National Council of Writing Program Administrators Best Book Award, 2000, for Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum, eds. Linda Shamoon, Sandra Jamieson, Rebecca Howard, and Robert Schwegler, which included Bizzell's essay "Writing as a Means of Social Change".

Books published