Visiting Scholars

Beth Boquet is Director of the Writing Center and Professor of English at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. She has served on the Executive Board of the International Writing Centers Association. From 2002-2008, she was co-editor (with Neal Lerner) of Writing Center Journal. Her published work has appeared in scholarly journals and edited collections, and her book, Noise from the Writing Center, was published by Utah State University Press. Her article “‘It’s All Coming Together Right Before My Eyes’: On Poetry Peace and Creative Placemaking in Writing Centers” was published in Writing Center Journal in 2015.


Christian Z. Goering is an Associate Professor of English Education at the University of Arkansas where he directs the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project and the licensure programs in English Education and Theatre/Communications. He writes mostly about the varying uses of music in the teaching of English and recently co-edited Recontextualized: A Framework for Teaching English with Music (Sense, 2016). Other interests include education policy, effective professional development, Socratic Circles, and cross age service learning initiatives, the latter of which is the subject of The Arkansas Delta Oral History Project: Culture, Place, Authenticity (Syracuse UP, 2016), a book he co-authored. He’s a singer-songwriter in his spare time, releasing two CDs, the most recent of which is Big Engine (2016).


David Joliffe is Professor of English and, by courtesy, Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Arkansas, where he is the initial occupant of the Brown Chair in English Literacy. He earned a B.A. in English, magna cum laude, from Bethany College in 1974; an M.A. in English from West Virginia University in 1980; and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas in 1984. A native of New Martinsville, West Virginia, Jolliffe began his career as an educator at Triadelphia High School and then at Wheeling Park High School, where he taught both English and theatre. Jolliffe has also taught at West Virginia University, Bethany, the University of Texas, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and DePaul University. He moved to Fayetteville in 2005 to inaugurate the work of the Brown Chair, whose mission is to promote critical and effective literacy among Arkansans in all walks of life.

The author or editor of 14 books and more than 40 articles on the history and theory of rhetoric, the teaching of writing, and the preparation of writing teachers, Jolliffe has always connected his work to the arts, particularly to theatre. His office sponsors a program called SISTA (Students Involved in Sustaining Their Arkansas), which links Arkansas High School students with University of Arkansas mentors as both parties develop proposals for community sustainability projects, and the Arkansas Studio Project, which offers arts-infused literacy-enrichment activities in secondary schools in Springdale, Arkansas. He acts regularly with The Classical Edge Theatre Company, which offers free, outdoor productions of William Shakespeare’s works in Northwest Arkansas and throughout the state.

Jolliffe has been actively involved with the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Program since 1992. He served as Chief Reader for AP English Language from 2003 through 2007 and again from 2010 through 2011.


SISTA Project: Students Involved in Sustaining Their Arkansas

Northwest Arkansas Writing Project