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 in-progress book project, 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 am currently collaborating 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.