Hello! I am an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at Virginia Tech where I research the rhetoric of higher education policy, histories of rhetoric, and writing pedagogy.

Born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, I left the Midwest for the Pacific Northwest to pursue my B.A. at The Evergreen State College, an experimental, public liberal arts college. I went on to complete my M.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Annapolis, and my Ph.D. in Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University. I currently teach courses in the Department of English at Virginia Tech on ancient and modern histories of rhetoric, critical theory, and professional and technical writing.

My forthcoming book, For the Public Good: Advocating for Higher Education’s Public Promise, examines how higher education leaders engage in debates about education policy in the 20th and 21st centuries. A chapter of my book, entitled “Rivaling the Rhetoric of Accountability: Dissociation as an Advocacy Strategy in U.S. Higher Education Policy,” was published in Argumentation and Advocacy in 2021.

I also study how the rhetoric of education policy shapes classroom practice. I have recently collaborated on two projects that examine perceptions of failure and Intellectual Risk-Taking (IRT) in the university writing classroom. For previous work on IRT, see the article I co-wrote and published in Composition Studies called “Intellectual Risk in the Writing Classroom: Navigating Tensions in Educational Values and Classroom Practice.”

If you are interested in collaborating on research, teaching, or higher education advocacy efforts, please contact me at ccommer@vt.edu.