I am a scholar of rhetoric and argumentation theory, as well as the history of U.S. higher education policy. Having previously served as a Legislative Director for the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students (NAGPS), I have experience reporting on higher education policy issues related to funding for higher education, student debt, international student visas, and open access to research.

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 am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Virginia Tech, where I teach courses in 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 conduct pedagogical research on 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.