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Detailed Information

Programs of Study

The Department of Language, Literature, and Communication (LL&C) at Rensselaer is an internationally recognized center for interdisciplinary education, research, and theory development. The study of human communication deals with the processes by which humans create and share meaning. It is an interdisciplinary field embracing speech communication, composition and rhetoric, media studies, visual design, human-computer interaction, and technical communication. LL&C emphasizes those communication processes involved in the creation of meaning in all media, including the new electronic media.

The Department offers M.S. degree programs in human-computer interaction, technical communication, and communication and rhetoric and a Ph.D. in communication and rhetoric. The M.S. degrees can lead to careers in usability engineering, information architecture, interface and Web design, technical communication, or applied communication research or provide a foundation for doctoral study. Graduates of the Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric program find careers in business, government, and academia.

The M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) program combines course work in human-computer interaction with theory in allied areas such as technical communication, human factors, information design, cognitive science, and computer science. Students gain a complement of theory in these areas and applied work in design and software implementation. The program emphasizes knowledge of computer usability research and interface design over implementation skills. Rensselaer’s approach to human-computer interaction differs from other HCI programs by being centered in communication rather than computer science. Graduates are prepared to work as information architects, usability engineers, interface designers, or webmasters, depending on their individual course selections.

The M.S. in Technical Communication program combines work in theory, writing, information design, and content production. This program enables students to gain design skills that resist obsolescence and the capacity to generate content for several electronically based communication media. Students acquire knowledge of information and product usability, product design, and rapid learning of electronic tools, and they gain practice with the information production skills needed to advance in a career as a technical communicator. Graduates are equipped to keep up with rapid changes in information technology and in information design.

The M.S. in Communication and Rhetoric program enables students to study the knowledge base of communication research, to gain research skills used in adding to that base, and to gain experience in applying research to practice. As part of their program students are able to study Web interaction, computer-mediated communication, communication marketing, and other modes of electronically supported discourse. Rensselaer’s M.S. in Communication and Rhetoric draws on the core M.S. courses and goes on to give students a grounding in analytical methods and in the research literature of a specific theoretical area. This program emphasizes new areas of theory and research and enables students to conduct applied research in industry or to move on to doctoral study. The program accepts students from discourse-related fields such as English, communication arts, or journalism and students with research experience in the social sciences, physical sciences, or engineering.

The M.S. programs require 30 credit hours of core course work, electives, and a capstone or directed-research independent study project.

The mission of the Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric program at Rensselaer is to enable students to make a contribution with rigor, depth, and creativity on issues related to communication in technologically mediated contexts. The program’s approach draws on the insights of rhetoric, technical communication, composition, communication studies, human-computer interaction, game studies, and graphic design. Combining the resources of a premier technological university with a faculty strongly grounded in theory and research as well as technology and media, the Department is uniquely positioned to provide an environment for graduate study in communication and technology.

The Ph.D. degree requires satisfactory completion of 90 credit hours beyond the bachelor’s degree or 60 hours beyond a related master’s degree. While specific plans of study vary to meet individual needs and interests, all students must meet the core program requirements.

Research Facilities

Research is supported by state-of-the-art facilities and equipment including the Rensselaer Libraries, whose electronic information system provides access to collections, databases, and the Internet from campus and remote terminals; the Rensselaer Computing System, which permeates the campus with a coherent array of more than 7,000 nodes of distributed laptops, desktops, advanced workstations, and servers; a shared toolkit of applications for interactive learning and research and high-speed Internet connectivity; one of the country’s largest academically based, class 100 clean room facilities; high-performance campuswide computing facilities that allow for serial or parallel computation; and five core laboratories for molecular biology, proteomics, bio-imaging, and tissue engineering.

Rensselaer’s research capabilities have been enhanced with the addition of the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI). The result of a $100-million collaboration with IBM and New York State, the CCNI is the world’s most powerful university-based supercomputing center and a top ten supercomputing center of any kind in the world. The CCNI is made up of massively parallel Blue Gene supercomputers, POWER-based Linux clusters, and Opteron-based clusters, providing more than 100 teraflops of computational muscle and approximately a petabyte of shared online storage.

Other facilities and research centers include the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies; the George M. Low Center for Industrial Innovation; research centers for integrated electronics, terahertz science, nanotechnology, fuel cell and hydrogen research, lighting research, science and technology policy, and infrastructure and transportation studies; the Geotechnical Centrifuge Research Center; the Darrin Fresh Water Institute; and the Scientific Computation Research Center. In addition, academic departments and faculty laboratories have extensive discipline-specific research capabilities and equipment.

The Department of Language, Literature, and Communication offers superb facilities for computer-mediated communication studies, multimedia development, and new educational environments. These include state-of-the-art computer labs; the digital imaging studio, which is a graduate space set up for computer graphics, computer video, animation, layout, and Web development; the Design Conference RoomTM, a media-enhanced conference facility and laboratory supporting multidisciplinary collaborative design; specially designed collaborative classrooms; and a writing center that offers one-on-one support for preparing written, oral, and electronic communication projects.

LL&C faculty members and graduate students and their colleagues from the Departments of Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Electronic Arts, Management, and Science and Technology Studies conduct cross-disciplinary studies in the social and behavioral impact of information technologies at the Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory (SBRL), a facility that houses applied and basic research in computer-mediated communication (CMC), human-computer interaction (HCI), psychology, cognitive science, community informatics, and technology studies. The 10,000-square-foot lab contains HCI and human factors research suites with eye-tracking and observational video systems, focus group rooms with both direct and video observation and recording facilities, small CMC research rooms with computer and video systems, an immersive Virtual Reality studio, a computer-aided telephone and Web survey research lab, and a large-group research room. The facility provides research teams with physical space for research projects; laboratory equipment for a broad range of projects; technical support services such as computer programming, networking, and equipment construction; administrative support for conducting funded research; and space for housing postdoctoral associates and graduate research assistants. It promotes cross-disciplinary research efforts by providing a space for interaction among researchers of differing backgrounds and training.

Financial Aid

Financial aid is available in the forms of teaching and research assistantships and fellowships, which include tuition scholarships and stipends. Rensselaer assistantships cover the academic year, with summer support available in many departments. University, corporate, or national fellowships fund many of Rensselaer’s full-time graduate students. Outstanding students may qualify for university-sponsored Rensselaer Graduate Fellowship Awards, which carry a minimum stipend of $22,000 and a full tuition and fees scholarship. All fellowship awards are calendar-year awards for full-time graduate students. Low-interest, deferred-repayment graduate loans are available to U.S. citizens with demonstrated need.

Cost of Study

Full-time graduate tuition for the 2008–09 academic year is $36,950. Other costs (estimated living expenses, insurance, etc.) are projected to be about $13,680. Therefore, the cost of attendance for full-time graduate study is approximately $50,630. Part-time study and cohort programs are priced differently. Students should contact Rensselaer for specific cost information related to the programs they wish to study.

Living and Housing Costs

Graduate students at Rensselaer may choose from a variety of housing options. On campus, students can select one of the many residence halls and immerse themselves in campus life or choose from a select number of apartments designed for graduate students only. There are abundant, affordable options off campus as well, many within easy walking distance.

Student Group

Of the 1,176 graduate students, 29 percent are women and 92 percent are full-time, with 75 percent of full-time graduate students studying at the doctoral level.

Student Outcomes

Rensselaer’s graduate students are hired in a variety of industries and sectors of the economy and by private and public organizations, the government, and institutions of higher education. Their starting salaries average $74,807 for master’s degree recipients and $82,750 for Ph.D. recipients.

Location

Located just 10 miles northeast of Albany, New York State’s capital city, Rensselaer’s historic 275-acre campus sits on a hill overlooking the city of Troy, New York, and the Hudson River. The area offers a relaxed lifestyle with many cultural and recreational opportunities, with easy access to both the high-energy metropolitan centers of the Northeast–such as Boston, New York City, and Montreal, Canada–and the quiet beauty of the neighboring Adirondack Mountains.

The Institute

Recognized as a leader in interactive learning and interdisciplinary research, Rensselaer continues a tradition of excellence and technological innovation dating back to 1824. Rensselaer has five schools–Architecture, Engineering, Management, Science, and Humanities and Social Sciences–that offer more than 100 graduate programs in over forty-eight disciplines that attract top students, researchers, and professors. The discovery of new scientific concepts and technologies, especially in emerging interdisciplinary fields, is the lifeblood of Rensselaer’s culture and a core goal for the faculty, staff, and students. Fueled by significant support from government, industry, and private donors, Rensselaer provides a world-class education in an environment tailored to the individual.

Applying

The admission deadline for the fall semester is January 1. Basic admission requirements are the submission of a completed application form (available online), the required application fee ($75), a statement of background and goals, official transcripts, official scores on the GRE General Test, TOEFL or IELTS scores (if applicable), and two recommendations. A scholarly writing sample is required for Ph.D. applicants.

The Faculty and Their Research

• There are more than 20 LL&C faculty members involved in graduate education. They comprise a large, diverse, yet integrated community dedicated to teaching and mentoring graduate students. LL&C faculty members make an exceptionally strong contribution to research in communication in technologically mediated contexts through an active program of publication in a variety of fields and in the production of artistic media. They are also successful in securing external funding for their work. Recent research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Society for Technical Communication, and the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education. LL&C faculty members also receive professional recognition and honors for their work. At last count, they had won more than thirty awards, including numerous fellowships, awards for best articles, visiting professorships, teaching awards, and professional society awards. They come from such organizations as the College Art Association, the Fulbright Program, the Game Developer’s Conference, the IEEE Professional Communication Society, the International Visual Literacy Association, the National Communication Association, the Popular Culture Association, the Rhetoric Society of America, and the Society for Technical Communication.
• Cheryl Geisler, Professor and Department Head; Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon. Cheryl Geisler is a joint Professor of Rhetoric and Composition and Information Technology. Her research focuses on writing in the disciplines and professions and at the work-life interface, especially in the context of emerging communication technologies; the intersection of text, technology, and design; methods of the analysis of verbal data; genre theory; and academic literacy. A body of recent work carried out with colleagues across the university has focused on the advancement of women to the rank of full professor. Geisler is currently serving as Principle Investigator on two major projects: RAMP-Up, a project for Institutional Transformation (http://www.rampup.rpi.edu) funded by the NSF ADVANCE Program to improve the advancement process at Rensselaer, and Tech-Mediated Communication (TMC), a project funded by a major grant from the Society for Technical Communication aimed at developing a set of useful paradigms for the analysis, design, and testing of technical communications in a mediated world (http://www.rpi.edu/~geislc/TMC/). In 2006, Geisler was the recipient of the Kneupper Award for best article in the Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and authored a paper recognized as one of the top three papers by the Division of Organization Communication at the National Communication Association. (geislc@rpi.edu)
• Audrey Bennett, Associate Professor; M.F.A., Yale. Audrey Bennett teaches and conducts research in graphics. Her research is on the development of an interactive aesthetics (IA) theory in graphics that explains the phenomenon of collaborative visual design. The underpinning of her hypothesis is that the use of interactive techniques, strategies, or technologies that facilitate collaboration from participants at various stages of the design process brings about appropriate cross-cultural aesthetics. Over the past three years she has been testing IA on interdisciplinary design research projects on social robotics, dyslexia, ethnomathematics, and AIDS awareness and prevention. She is editor of Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design, published by Princeton Architectural Press, that chronicles historical and contemporary efforts of designers to broaden the scope of the profession of graphic design to include research. Her work is published in the Journal of Design Research,Visible Language,Design Issues,The Journal of Graphic Design,The Education of a Graphic Designer,The Education of a Typographer, and various international design research conference proceedings. From 2002–04, she served as communications director for the board of directors of the Upstate New York Chapter of the AIGA. Currently, she is sponsorship chair. (bennett@rpi.edu)
• June Deery, Associate Professor; D.Phil., Oxford. June Deery has published a book on Aldous Huxley and Huxley and the Mysticism of Science and several articles, one of which received a national award. She teaches courses in Advertising and Culture, Media and Popular Culture, Women Writers, Utopian Literature, and Science and Fiction in the Twentieth Century. Her research interests include media studies, television and new media, advertising and culture, popular culture, utopian literature, and literature and science. (deeryj@rpi.edu)
• Misa Dubrawski, Clinical Assistant Professor. Misa Dubrawski’s research interests include Japanese pedagogy, instructional technology, and computer-assisted language learning. (dubram@rpi.edu)
• Ellen Esrock, Associate Professor of Literature; Ph.D., NYU. Drawing on cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Ellen Esrock has focused her research on the role of visual (mental) images in reading and literature and the function of the somato-sensory system in viewing art. In 1994 she published The Reader’s Eye: Visual Imaging as Reader Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), which was supported by a Harvard Mellon Faculty Fellowship award. Currently she is working on Touching Art: Empathy and the Somato-Sensory System, for which she received a grant from the Italian Academy of Columbia University. Professor Esrock teaches courses in twentieth-century literature and visual art, psychology and literature, and theory/history of photography. She has completed several community service documentary photography projects with graduate and undergraduate RPI students. (esroce@rpi.edu)
• Janice Fernheimer, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric; Ph.D., Texas at Austin. Research focuses on rhetorical theory; history of rhetoric; Jewish rhetorical theory and history; nineteenth-century African-American rhetoric; Holocaust representation; rhetoric of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict; literacy, technology, and writing pedagogy; archival research methods; nineteenth- and twentieth-century African-American and Jewish literature. Her dissertation, "The Rhetoric of Black Jewish Identity Construction in America and Israel: 1964-1972," was supported by the National Foundation for Research in Jewish Culture's Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in Jewish Studies. Professor Fernheimer is revising the manuscript for publication. She is also the author of "Breaking the Commandments of Holocaust Representation? Conflicting Genre Expectations in Audience Responses to Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful" published in Beyond Life is Beautiful: Comedy and Tragedy in the Cinema of Roberto Benigni (Troubador Publishing, 2005); “Bridging the Divide: Blogs in the Composition Classroom,” co-authored with Tom Nelson in Currents in Electronic Literacy (December 2005); and "Arguing from Difference: Cooper, Emerson, Guizot, and a More Harmonious America," forthcoming in Speaking Our Minds: Black Women's Thought in the Nineteenth Century (University Press of New England 2007). (fernhj@rpi.edu)
• Nathan Freier, Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction; Ph.D., Washington (Seattle). Nathan conducts research on children's social and moral development in the context of interactions with personified technologies such as virtual characters and social robots; value-sensitive design of information and communication technologies; and the cross-cultural impact of technology. Amongst other research experiences in human-computer and human-robot interaction, Nathan has investigated children's social and moral judgments about interactions with a personified agent, children's interactions with and conceptions of a robotic dog, young researchers' views on the future of the field of human-robot interaction, the impact on psychological well-being of a large-screen display of natural information in windowless offices, privacy in location-enhanced ubiquitous computing, and the development of an interactive tool for teaching information retrieval and search engine design. (freien@rpi.edu)
• Lucien Gerber, Clinical Associate Professor of French; Ph.D., SUNY at Albany. Lucien Gerber teaches all the French courses listed in the Rensselaer Catalog, including independent study courses. He has also taught Seventeenth Century French Drama, Twentieth Century French Drama, Nineteenth Century French Poetry, and Advanced Grammar and Composition. Gerber is the adviser for the student exchange program with fourteen French technical universities. Gerber’s research focuses on computer-mediated communication in France. He investigates the French society and its relationship with the communication media, the current state of the Minitel system in France, the extent to which it is being used by the French, the role it plays in education and other aspects of French culture or social or business life, and the tug-of-war between the Minitel and the World Wide Web. (gerbel@rpi.edu)
• Carlos Godoy, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., USC; J.D., Berkeley. Professor Godoy’s research interests include the socio-psychological consequences of human interaction with media, health communication, message framing, developmental factors in risk-taking, modeling realistic personality in virtual agents, pedagogical agents, interactive media as an unobtrusive behavioral measure, and socially optimized learning in virtual environments. (godoyc@rpi.edu)
• Tamar Gordon, Associate Professor of Anthropology; Ph.D., Berkeley. Tamar Gordon’s work focuses on the cultural analysis of contemporary religions and their intersections with local and global modernities, themed environments, and Polynesian and American societies. Her graduate courses include Ethnography and Cultural Analysis. She is the author of a book in press, Mormons and Modernity in Tonga, and the editor of a collection of articles on ethnic theme parks, also forthcoming, and the director of a documentary film on ethnic theme parks entitled “Global Villages: The Globalization of Ethnic Display.” (gordot@rpi.edu)
• Roger Grice, Clinical Professor of Technical Communication and Interface Design and Acting Chair, HCI Committee; Ph.D., Rensselaer. Roger Grice is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and Assistant to the STC President for Membership. He is a senior member of IEEE and serves on IEEE’s Publication Services and Products Board. He has received STC’s Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication and IEEE Professional Communication Society’s Alfred N. Goldsmith Award for Contributions to Engineering Communication. Dr. Grice is retired from IBM and now conducts HCI research as a member of the Rensselaer faculty as well as teaching on-campus and distance-education courses on human-computer interaction, communication design for the World Wide Web, information usability, and technical communication. Current research interests include information usability, human-computer interaction, communicating on the World Wide Web, usability testing and evaluation, analysis of computer-games interfaces, effective teaching and learning in the virtual classroom, and designing the total user experience. (gricer@rpi.edu)
• Julie Gutmann, Clinical Assistant Professor; D.A., SUNY at Albany. Julie Gutmann’s research interests include creative writing (poetry and poetics, creative nonfiction), myth and literature, American poetry, Asian philosophies and religions, and first-year college teaching excellence. (gutmaj@rpi.edu)
• Ekaterina Haskins, Associate Professor of Rhetoric; Ph.D., Iowa. Ekaterina Haskins is the author of Logos and Power in Isocrates and Aristotle (University of South Carolina Press, 2004). Her research on classical and contemporary rhetoric has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Space and Culture, Journal of Communication Inquiry, and American Communication Journal as well as in a number of edited collections. Haskins is Book Review Editor for the Rhetoric Society Quarterly. She also serves on editorial boards of the Quarterly Journal of Speech,Advances in the History of Rhetoric,Controversia, and the New Antigone. In 2007, she served as local arrangements chair for the Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute, held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her research interests include rhetorical theory and history, visual rhetoric, and rhetorics of public memory and national identity. (haskie@rpi.edu)
• Robert Krull, Professor of Communication; Ph.D., Wisconsin–Madison. Robert Krull has conducted research on electronic performance support systems such as Web-based documentation and online tutorials and on user interfaces and print-based documentation. He has also studied educational television programs and has taught graduate-level distance courses in HCI for nearly ten years. Krull has won awards for his research from the IEEE Professional Communication Society and the Society for Technical Communication. He has also won the Jay R. Gould Award for instruction in technical communication and the Goldsmith award for his contributions to engineering communication. He has conducted studies of color and highlighting in online interfaces, user access of online help systems in three releases of a visual programming language, and online tutorials and wizards for integrated office software. (krullr@rpi.edu)
• Barbara Lewis, Clinical Associate Professor and Director, Center for Communication Practices; Ph.D., Rensselaer. Research interests include composition theory and research, writing center theory and research, theory and practice of peer tutoring, and the function of writing in specific disciplines, especially in engineering design. (lewisb2@rpi.edu)
• Michael Lynch, Clinical Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Connecticut. Michael Lynch’s research interests include human-computer interaction, analysis of computer game interfaces, design of AI within computer games in support of social interaction and communication, cognitive processes for modeling computer game AI, and speech act theory. (lynchm2@rpi.edu)
• Paul Miyamoto, Clinical Associate Professor; M.F.A., Otis Art Institute. Paul Miyamoto’s research interests include visual design theory, publication design theory and practice, and exploration of paint-based medium as an expressive art form. (pmiyamot@nycap.rr.com)
• Lee Odell, Professor of Composition Theory and Research; Chair, Writing and Institute Core Curriculum Committee; and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Ph.D., Michigan. Lee Odell’s recent publications discuss ways visual and textual information interact, both in print and online. Other publications include Evaluating Writing, Research on Composing (both with Charles Cooper), Writing in Non-Academic Settings (with Dixie Goswami), and Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing. He serves on a number of editorial boards of scholarly journals, including the Journal of Business and Technical Communication and the Journal of Advanced Composition. Research interests include composition theory and research, integrating visual and verbal information, writing in nonacademic settings, writing in engineering, rethinking literacy, and education reform. (odellc@rpi.edu)
• Patricia Search, Professor; M.A., Goddard. Patricia Search teaches courses in visual design theory and user-interface design for interactive multimedia computing. In her current art work and multimedia research, she is designing multimedia installations that explore the aesthetics of space, time, and action in computer interface design. She has had eighteen solo exhibitions of her art, six of which took place in New York City. She has participated in more than 150 juried exhibitions throughout the world, including several SIGGRAPH Art Shows, ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art) symposia, and the first United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, China. She has also served on the Executive Board of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts. Her research interests include visual design theory and practice, interaction design and multimedia art, computer animation and hypermedia interface design, indigenous knowledge and interaction design, and multiliteracy models for intercultural communication. (searcp@rpi.edu)
• Tong Shen, Clinical Assistant Professor of Chinese; M.A., Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; M.A., Massachusetts Amherst. Chinese linguistics, dialectology, phonology, and general linguistics. (shen3t@rpi.edu)
• James Watt, Professor of Communication and Information Technologies and Director, Rensselaer Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory; Ph.D., Wisconsin–Madison. James H. Watt is the co-author of two books (Watt and Vandenberg, Research Methods for Communication Sciences; Watt and VanLear, Dynamic Patterns in Communication Processes) and more than seventy research articles, book chapters, technical reports, and papers. He is a founding partner in Swift Interactive Technologies (Hopkinton, MA), which provides Web survey research services and specialized computer software for survey research data collection, analysis, and modeling. Watt has recently completed studies of the credibility of Web and television news in wartime; a uses and gratifications analysis of Web use in three countries; and studies of the effect of synchrony and cue richness in online collaboration. Other recently completed projects are a collaboration with Baruch College on a FIPSE grant to evaluate an audio-tactile interface for teaching statistics to blind students and an NSF grant (with TouchGraphics, Inc.) to develop an auditory way-finding system to guide the visually impaired in public spaces. He is currently directing a major national survey research project in SBRL, funded by the Patricia Wieler Memorial ALS Project, to uncover possible environmental factors in the development of ALS (Lou Gherig's disease). (wattj@rpi.edu)
• Merrill D. Whitburn, Louis Ellsworth Laflin Professor of English; Ph.D., Iowa. Merrill D. Whitburn teaches courses in the history of rhetoric, technical communication, speech, and the novel. He was awarded the Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication by the Society for Technical Communication and the Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award from Texas A&M University. He is currently completing a book entitled Rhetorical Scope and Performance: The Example of Technical Communication, which was funded by a Mina Shaughnessy Scholars Award from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the Carnegie Corporation. Prior to his academic career, Whitburn held positions in communication with Western Electric and the Gelman Instrument Company, and throughout his career he has served as a consultant to industry and other academic institutions. (whitbm@rpi.edu)
• James P. Zappen, Professor; Ph.D., Missouri. Jim Zappen has research interests in contemporary rhetorical theory, digital rhetoric, community networking, and information-design processes. He has recently published a book titled The Rebirth of Dialogue, which includes an epilogue on dialogue in print and digital media. He is currently working on a new book tentatively titled Rhetorics of Diversity and Community: Mikhail M. Bakhtin and Kenneth Burke, based in part upon his research at the Burke archives in Andover, New Jersey. His recent publications include: "Digital Rhetoric," http://www.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Vita/DigitalRhetoric2005.pdf; "Developing a Youth-Services Information System," http://www.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Vita/UserDesignerCollaboration2006.pdf; and "On Persuasion, Icdentification, and Dialectical Symmetry," http://www.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Vita/OnPersuasion2007.pdf. (zappenj@rpi.edu)

Correspondence and Information

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Department of Language, Literature, and Communication
Russell Sage Laboratory, 4508
110 8th Street
Troy, New York 12180-3590
Telephone: 518 276-6469
Email: colmak@rpi.edu