Teaching Biography

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Stephen A. Bernhardt, PHD
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: Ph.D. in English and Education (1981)

M.S. Ed. Secondary English Teaching, Northern IllinoisUniversity, DeKalb (1976)

A.B. Philosophy, University of Illinois, Urbana (1971)

Professional Statement

My teaching centers on helping people develop skills in writing and communication. The most delicate work we do is helping people gain control over language, so they can work effectively, present themselves confidently to the world, and accomplish the goals they set for themselves. The work we do in rhetoric and professional communication, in composition and language arts is ennobling, immensely important, and consequential in both immediate and abstract ways. As the medium of language shifts toward electronic literacies and online texts, our work becomes even more complicated and important.

Teaching Biography

As of 2001, I am the first holder of the Andrew B. Kirkpatrick Chair in Writing and Professor of English at the University of Delaware. The Kirkpatrick Chair was endowed to honor UD Board of Trustees President Kirkpatrick, and the mission is to raise the culture of writing at the University. In this capacity, I work across campus to further instruction in writing and communication, teach a variety of writing courses, and work closely with our English majors, especially those who emphasize English for Business and Technology. I work closely with faculty development in problem-based learning and outcomes assessment as paths to integrate writing across the disciplines. I also work with an NSF project—Integrated Education and Research in Graduate Training—to develop cross disciplinary, team based skills among graduate students in biotechnology.

My research interests center on workplace communication, especially pharmaceutical, technical, and scientific, as well as computer-mediated communication. I am something of a pragmatist, with strong interests in how language use is influenced by particular situations and technologies. I teach undergraduate courses in technical and business communication, typically in a computer setting. I like to help students develop their teamwork and technology skills, and to do it in a setting where they work on client projects.

My academic career is probably best described as a succession of related projects. I taught high school for several years and maintain interests in English Education, teacher preparation, and school reform. While I was Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (1981-87, tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1987), I worked closely with Bruce Appleby and Greg Johnson on NEH-funded programs in writing across the curriculum, with an emphasis on writing and computers as learning tools. I taught courses and published research on literacy, basic writing, writing evaluation, and computers and writing. I consulted to various school districts and to the State of Illinois on the development of outcomes-based education.

At NMSU from 1987 to 2000, I taught a wide range of courses in the English Department, especially within the graduate programs in technical and professional communication. When I came to NMSU, my interests tended more toward professional communication, especially in the graduate curriculum. I spent five years working with Paul Meyer on National Workplace Literacy Partnerships, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, NMSU, the NM Literacy Coalition, and some 17 hospitals around New Mexico. We established a wide range of literacy and communication training for entry level employees: basic reading; employee-to-employee tutoring in English and Spanish; short courses in speaking, writing, and supervising; and various workshops to increase employee skills and enhance their careers and personal lives. I actively pursue workplace connections and work to provide teaching technologies to our faculty, particularly so they can teach writing in regularly scheduled computer classrooms.

My training and consulting work is closely related to my teaching. For several years, I worked with my friend and colleague Ted Smith of Austin, Texas to offer a series of courses in writing and document development to employees of IBM, Motorola, and Hughes Electronics and Aerospace divisions. Since 1995, when I spent a year in Basel, Switzerland at Roche pharmaceuticals, my consulting and training has focused on document development and team facilitation in various companies bringing new drugs to market. I try to help students understand workplaces and to see themselves as document scientists and technical trainers.

Teaching Emphases and Research Interests

Technical, business, scientific and other forms of professional communication; computers and writing, document development, online and hypertext composition; empirical research methods; English education; grammar and style; publication management; consulting and training; workplace literacy.