On Tuesday, I interviewed professional writing instructor Jo Doran, a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition. She has been working on her degree for three years and hopes to obtain it in the next two. She received her undergraduate degree from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich., and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the same school.

After graduating from Western Michigan, she got married and raised five children. Later, she started a business with a girlfriend in the friend’s dining room, but they soon had to move their operations to the basement when the woman’s husband grew tired of the mess. They did everything the business required to stay afloat themselves, a task which became more challenging and required more organization as the business grew. The business provided temporary workers to companies who needed people for positions like secretaries and “gal Fridays”, “but they didn’t know we were the temps,” Doran said. The operation of her home business, both as a temp worker for the company and as a manager of the company, provided Doran an early look at the field of professional writing.

Eventually, Doran and her friend closed the door on their business. Realizing that her Master’s in Creative Writing wouldn’t garner her as many employment opportunities as one could hope, Doran then decided to pursue a Ph.D. in something more marketable. She applied to only one program, Rhetoric and Composition at Purdue University, and she considers it fortunate that she was accepted as a Ph.D. candidate and that the program was such a good match. The school appealed to her because several people she’d been familiar with at Western Michigan had chosen Purdue to further their education, and also for practicality, as Purdue has a 97 percent placement rate for the Rhetoric and Composition program.

After becoming a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue, Doran applied to teach professional writing classes because she thought it would be interesting. She had prior experience working in a writing lab at Western Michigan. Her work as a professional writing instructor has taught her that, when acting as the authority in a class, you have to have a plan. The university expects its students to be taking classes that will prepare students for the real world, especially in business writing. Doran has taught Engl. 420 (Business Writing) in many forms, sometimes for international students or over the internet for distance learners. She has also taught the Service Learning Project incarnation of Business Writing, in which students work in teams to provide services for local companies. This sort of hands-on experience is very successful in preparing students for what they can expect after graduation.

As a business writing instructor and a volunteer who works closely with English as a Second Language students, Doran stresses that future professional writers should make choices with the issue of globalization in mind. “We have to think of the real world,” she said. The international students she works with have ambition and a work ethic that is sometimes lacking in the American students she has taught. She said American students sometimes exhibit a sense of entitlement, thinking that they deserve to get the job of their dreams without putting in the effort that such a goal requires. On the other hand, she’d like to boost the self-confidence of another category of students who believe that they won’t be good enough to contribute to society no matter how hard they work. The most important qualities a student can demonstrate, she believes, are respectfulness, honesty, and a willingness to follow through on obligations. She recommends volunteering as a way of developing the sort of qualities that will be valued by employers.

In addition to working toward her Ph.D. degree, Doran enjoys playing the piano, knitting, doing other crafts, reading and volunteering. She also does some business consulting on the side. A lot of the volunteering she does involves helping ESL students improve their English and writing skills in the Purdue Writing Lab. She works through word of mouth, with many of the people she has assisted recommended to her by friends. Doran is passionate about her work in the Writing Lab. She finds that she is able to help people more in the lab than in her classes, as the students who come to the lab are more open about what they need.

Holly Pierson