Luke Niiler

Luke Niiler

Associate Professor
Director, First-Year Writing Program

Education

  • PhD, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1995

Research Areas

  • Composition & Rhetoric

Bio

I received my PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo a lifetime ago, in 1995. Since that time I’ve taught high school and community college in the Baltimore area, and directed writing centers at the University of Texas at Tyler, the University of Missouri-Rolla, and the University of Alabama. My teaching and research interests have careened wildly between composition, writing centers, and Middle-earth. I’m working on a semi-autobiographical book about my experience as a graduate student in Buffalo during the late 80s and early 90s — during the last days of high theory (good riddance) and hair metal (too bad).

Selected Publications

  • “By Turns Pleased and Confounded: One Writing Center’s RAD Assessments.” The Writing Center Journal, 35.3. Winter 2016.
  • “The Writing Center, Transformed.”  Academic Exchange Quarterly  17.4, Winter 2013.
  • With David Beams and Beth Todd.  “The Coach:  A Web-Based Resource for Improving the Writing Skills of Engineering Students.”  Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education.  2013.
  • With Joan Barth, Marcus Brown, Prateek Bahiri, Virginia Tamondong, David Beams, Garry Warren, Kenneth Swinney, and David Cordes.  “Beta-Testing a Web-Based Writing Coach.” Proceedings of the 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. November, 2012.
  • With David Beams, “How Engineering Students Learn to Write: Fourth-Year Findings and Summary of the UT-Tyler Engineering Writing Initiative.”  In Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. June 2009.
  • “Tolkien, Leopold, and the Land Ethic.”  In The Ring Goes Ever On:  Proceedings from the Tolkien Society 2005 Conference, edited by Sarah Wells.  Birmingham, UK:  The Tolkien Society, 2008.
  • “Grounds for Growth:  A Territorialist Perspective on Graduate Students in the Writing Center.” In (E)Merging Identities: Working with Graduate Students in the Writing Center, edited by Melissa Nicolas. Southlake, TX:  Fountainhead Press, 2008.
  • With David Beams, “How Engineering Students Learn to Write:  Third-Year Findings from the Engineering Writing Initiative.”  In Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. June 2007.
  • With David Beams, “How Engineering Students Learn to Write:  The Second Year of the Engineering Writing Initiative at the University of Texas at Tyler.” In Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education  June 2006.
  • With David Beams, “Preliminary Findings of the Engineering Writing Initiative at the University of Texas at Tyler:  A Longitudinal Study of How Engineers Learn to Write.”   In Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. June 2005.
  • “The Numbers Speak (Again): A Continued Statistical Analysis of Writing Center Outcomes.” The Writing Lab Newsletter. January 2005.
  • With David Beams, “Improving Technical Writing Through Published Standards: The University of Texas at Tyler Electrical Engineering Laboratory Style Guide.” Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. June 2004.
  • “Timely, Again: Tolkien’s Fantastic Ecology.” Academic Exchange Quarterly 7:4 (Winter 2003).
  • Review of The Call to Write by John TrimburNY: Longman, 2002. In inReview [sic] 1:1. Fall 2003.
  • “The Numbers Speak: A Pre-Test of Writing Center Outcomes using Statistical Analysis.” The Writing Lab Newsletter. March 2003.
  • “Green Reading: Tolkien, Leopold and the Land Ethic.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 10:3. Winter 2000.
  • “Adjunct Advocacy: The Articulation of Ethical Hiring Practices.” In Lore: An E-Journal for Teachers of Writing. Fall 2003.
  • With Linda Bergmann, “Problem-Posing Learning in the Computer Writing Classroom.” In Computer Enhanced Learning: Vignettes of Best Practices. David G. Brown, editor. Bolton, MA: Anker. 2000.