Holy Cross Professor Named President-Elect of Rhetoric Society of America

WORCESTER, Mass. – Worcester resident Patricia Bizzell, chair of the English department at the College of the Holy Cross, has recently been named president-elect to the Rhetoric Society of America. The Society is a national organization composed of scholars from a variety of disciplines who study rhetoric's history, theory, public practice, and pedagogical methods.

Bizzell earned her Ph.D. in English literature from Rutgers University. A nationally recognized authority on the teaching of composition, she has lectured and conducted workshops at other institutions and at scholarly meetings. Bizzell is the author of numerous articles and essays on composition theory. Her book, The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, which she co-authored with Bruce Herzberg, received the National Council of Teachers of English Outstanding Book Award in 1992. She is an expert on American literature, rhetoric and rhetorical theory, and composition and composition theory.

Bizzell will chair the next biennial national conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, to take place at the University of Texas, Austin in May 2004.