Patricia L. Gillikin

Education / Degrees

• PhD in Rhetoric and Composition, Texas Christian University, 1996
• MA in English, The College of William and Mary, 1989
• BA in English, Education, University of Dallas, 1988

Biography

I direct the Writing Center and teach first year writing and intro to literature classes. I focus on writing pedagogy that respects the agency of writers and I have faith in the power of students’ creative processes—I have seen over and over how when writers keep at their work, they develop beautifully.

When I began my MA in English at The College of William and Mary in Virginia, I was hired as a Writing Consultant in their Writing Center, and I fell in love with that work and with writing centers. I had no idea at the time that I would eventually be fortunate enough to direct a writing center.

In 1995, after defending my PhD dissertation, I started my full-time college teaching at Mountain State University in Beckley, West Virginia, where I coordinated English 100. In 2004, I began teaching at UNM-Valencia, where I coordinated Developmental English until 2014. I worked with and helped hire teachers for the program and we developed curriculum, which came to include a strong emphasis linking teaching writing with teaching the reading of challenging texts. Later, from 2019 to 2022, I coordinated the English program.

Since 2016 I have had the privilege of developing and directing the Writing Center at UNM-Valencia. One of the most wonderful things I get to do in my professional life is to work with the amazing peer Writing Consultants of our center in creating a gentle, accessible, respectful, just, and joyful space for writers.

Community: I co-founded and supported Albuquerque’s OUTSpoken Queer Poetry Slam, 2009-2018, and I’ve performed and published poetry locally. I’ve served as advisor to campus queer-straight alliances several times since the late 90s in West Virginia, most recently to the Gender and Sexuality Alliance at UNM-Valencia.

Professional development: In addition to more traditional conference presentations and attendance (I’m pretty much a conference nerd), the two activities that support me most as a teacher and a Writing Center professional are fanfiction and improv. It’s important for writing teachers to be reflective writers themselves, and the joys and challenges of writing fanfiction, and the community of writers I’ve found in my own fandoms, teach me empathy for the struggles of my writers. Meanwhile, I’ve been taking improv classes since 2016, and that has taught me, practically and emotionally, to meet all kinds of teaching and administrative situations with flexibility and energy.

Selected Publications

[under the name unwittingcatalyst] “Feelin’ Tired and Beat.” Archive of Our Own, April 8, 2022.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40799217

“Multifaceted Gem.” Outside/In Boldly Goes, edited by Stacey Smith?, ATB Publishing, 2016.

“I Want to Cultivate a Stillness in Me.” Fixed and Free Anthology, 2012.

“We Hide Behind Faces” and haiku. Adobe Walls: an anthology of New Mexico poetry (#3), Fall 2011.

“Through.” Adobe Walls: an anthology of New Mexico poetry (#2), Spring 2011.

Haiku (2). Adobe Walls: an anthology of New Mexico poetry (#1), Fall 2010.

“Finding What I Came For, Transitions to College Writing and Reading: Cultivating

Performative Literacy in Freshman English Class.” Basic Writing e-Journal, Issue 7.1, Fall 2008.

https://bwe.ccny.cuny.edu/7.1%20Finding%20What%20I%20Came%20For.html

“Stories I Need to Hear: Review of CCCCs session A. 29: Exposing Some Basic Realities: A

Conversation about BW Strategy from Portfolios and Stretch Courses to Studios and

Mainstreaming.”Basic Writing e-Journal, Issue 7.1, Fall 2008.

https://bwe.ccny.cuny.edu/7.1%20Stories%20I%20Need%20to%20Hear.html

Review of What is “College-Level” Writing? by Patrick Sullivan and Howard Tinberg. CEA Forum, July 2008.

“The Utopian Gesture in Feminist Folklinguistics: Attempting the Impossible” MP: An

Online Feminist Journal, January 2008.

https://academinist.org/back-talk-the-language-of-defiance-denial-distortion-and-development

Review of The Writing Center Resource Manual with co-authors Bethany Fox and Kathy

Zirckel (writing tutors in the MSU Tutoring Center). The Writing Lab Newsletter, December 1998.

https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/v23/23.4.pdf

Review of Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy by Carmen Luke, Jennifer Gore. Composition

Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 107-109.

“Problematizing Orality/Literacy: A Brief Survey of Critiques.” CCTE Studies, 58(1993):89-94.

“Critical Responses to the Early Ballads of Elizabeth B. Barrett and Alternate Constructions

of Neo-Medievalism.” Studies in Browning and His Circle, 19(1991):34-40.

“Applying Models of Masculine and Feminine Sexuality: Narrative Patterns in Poe and

Gilman.” Proceedings of the 1992 Louisiana Philological Association, Ruston, LA.

Professional Organizations

Rocky Mountain Writing Center Association