HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

How I Communicated with an Army of One

Danei Stephenson
University of Central Florida

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

How I Communicated with an Army of One

Introduction
Dr. Elizabeth Wardle is everything I didnt know existed. While she spends her
time traveling, being with her husband, and providing speeches at other universities, she
sits as the Department Chair of the Writing and Rhetoric major at the University of
Central Florida. She holds her bachelors degree in Philosophy from the University of
Louisville, masters in English from the same institution and her Ph.D in Rhetoric and
Professional Communication from Iowa State University. She also teaches the Writing
and Rhetoric exit capstone course at the University of Central Florida, in which I am a
student of as well. These facts about her can be asked about and found within a small
conversation with her in her office. A petite woman behind a pixie cut and glasses is what
my professor shows, but what you dont see is her enormous brain with an even bigger
heart. Her focus is on change within the education system regarding the understanding
and physical use for writing in regards to public policy.
I originally performed this interview in thoughts of capturing Dr. Wardle as an
author, with experiences in major editing. I want to be an author for a fictional book
sometime in my life and I see myself being an editor for a major publishing company too.
I chose Dr. Wardle because I felt she had experiences in both aspects and could share her
story with a prospective writer. The current book, Naming What We Know: Threshold
Concepts of Writing Studies, we (her students) are using for her class was written by her
and some of her colleagues across the nation. She has editing experience from her
previous book, Writing about Writing: A College Reader. I quickly made an appointment

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

with her during her office hours to interview her. After explaining the purpose of this
article and telling her why I chose her, she quickly told me Im not sure if this is what
you are looking for. But okay. Adamant on choosing her and her experience, we
completed a 55-minute interview that was originally set out to be 30 that left me with
answers to questions I planned to ask and then some.
The first questions I asked revolved around the evolution of her as a professional and
how she became the Department Chair:
Im the Department Chair and a full professor. I started-finished my
undergrad as a philosophy major then I waited tables then I went to grad
school for humanities and then I didnt finish that then I went back after
got a real job where I raised money for food banks. I went back to grad
school for English where I started teaching as a GTA [graduate teaching
assistant ] and I liked that so then I thought, okay if this involves teaching
then Ill keep going. So then I went to a Ph.D program in Iowa. I got my
first tenor track job in Dayton as an assistant professor. And then I came
here in 2008 with tenor as an associate professor then I got promoted to
full professor and thenright after that I became Department Chair. (E.
Wardle, personal communication, September 28, 2015)
With this explanation, I already knew that this interview contained vital professional
skills, but I wasnt going to gain the information I intended. But I couldnt give up the
opportunity to learn about academic writing in post secondary administration.
Because I had provided a list of questions to her that I would start our interview
off with, she knew I would soon be asking the big question, How Did You Begin

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

Writing. She coauthored the book we used for the capstone class as well as another used
for instructional use at other universities across the nation. I was sure she had
fundamental information that she could share on the process of writing within her field of
choice. Her response was If you want an academic career, you have to write and
publish. You start doing that in graduate school and start submitting pieces to publications
and so Ive been writing all along so I would never have gotten a job or gotten promoted
and gotten tenure. (E. Wardle, personal communication, September 28,
2015) From here I noticed that her purpose of writing was different than my mine of
my original interest, but similar at the same time. She wrote because it was a part of her
job and it was what was expected of her within the field even from graduate school (E.
Wardle, personal communication, September 28, 2015). I want to write
because I like writing and expressing myself. But what I did believe at this point was that
we had an audience in mind of who we had to address with our words and convince them
to perform an action.
Who Is She
As the interview progressed and I asked more questions, I was able to form a
persona of an academic writer with in college studies, specifically the department of
writing and rhetoric here at the university. An academic writer writes pieces that are
related the previous, almost like a set of works. All works that are created are used to give
credibility to your worth as a professional in the university. While typical writers may
experience writers block, which holds up the writing process, academic writers have a
plethora of other obligations related to their job title that puts strains on their writing
process. Dr. Wardle credits her delay in writing to emails, reports, committee meetings,

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

and administrative duties related to directing and chairing the writing program (E.
Wardle, personal communication, September 28, 2015). While these other
activities related to her job disturb her writing, they are still vital in the growth of her
soft skills referenced in Chapter 2 Why Communication Matters in Jennifer
MacLennans book, Reading for Technical Communication (RTC). Her other duties are
an excellent way to stay connected with her colleagues within the department on student
issues, confront concerns of studies and other faculty members, and be a leader within the
UCF community (MacLennnan, 2008, p. 5). RTC defines this type of dialogue among
peers as effective communicationan essential ingredient for a successful and fulfilling
professional life (MacLennnan, 2008, p. 8), which Dr. Wardle is excelling at. At one
point she was the Director of the first year writing program, she was over 40 professors
teaching 4000 students a semester while teaching her own courses and trying to produce
work from academic journals and scholarly books (E. Wardle, personal
communication, September 28, 2015). She was in communication with
different audiences who were looking for very distinct goals, which was very timeconsuming when she had her own agenda to pay attention to. This communication within
the workplace interrupts her communication with her initial audience at times, but it all
came with her job title, which has helped her mature and transform within her profession.
New Findings
Something I learned through our interview was that passion for a topic could
drive ambition and motivation towards a goal. During the interview I tried to dissect Dr.
Wardle, the writer, from Dr. Wardle, the Chair. I thought she would be able to make one
aspect more valuable than the other. What I gained from the interview was that they are

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

one in the same and she couldnt separate the two because her job gave her the task to
write but her passion for reformation within the educational system gave her the spark of
interest in the subject. She could not be one without the other. A few topics she writes
about with her job include: effectively running writing programs, how writing should be
taught by professor and to students, and how to help people learn better. It was hard for
her to identity what she would write about if it werent intertwined with her job (E.
Wardle, personal communication, September 28, 2015). This is all she has
done and researched since graduate school, which highlighted her passion and dedication
to the topic. To me, this related to RTC Chapter 3, A Whole New Mind for a Flat World
and the skills needed within workers within the growing workforce, specifically in field
like hers where written and verbal communication is essential. As the chapter says,
companies are looking for people with language skills who can establish and maintain
good relations with current and potential customers, people with cultural awareness who
are interested in fostering beneficial relations between developing nations, self-directed
leaners, and holistic multidisciplinary thinkers (MacLennnan, 2008, p. 13). Dr. Wardle
has had the opportunity to embody all of these throughout her education and current
professional position within the university.
Though the book is talking about actual consumers of a product as customers, the
same example can be used as a metaphor in reference to students and their need for
enlightenment within college. She fosters beneficial relations between different nations
be joining university committees and boards where she can voice the concerns of the
department to those who are unfamiliar with the culture and networking with other
professionals within the university itself and the community outside of it. The subject

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

matter she travels across the state to lecture and speak about promotes new ideologies
(threshold concepts for example) that enact students to critically think, thus forming them
into self-directed learners who they can process on their own (MacLennnan, 2008, p. 13).
And through this, they become multidisciplinary thinkers after being exposed to new
ways of thinking and having to adapt to new knowledge they have now been pre-exposed
to.
With the development of her book Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts
of Writing Studies, she broke down some hard concepts and ideologies about what writing
is, what influences writing, the identity of an author and much more. As I was
interviewing her, she explained the process of her and her colleague Linda Adler-Kassner
brainstorming ideas for the novel over years of conferences and then recruiting other
scholars for their input on the content of the book as well. She explained to me that the
conversation of threshold concepts had been occurring over the years, but it was with her
book that is was being formed in a more simplistic manner for others to understand. She
and her associates knew that they had a lot of knowledge on the topic of writing, but
werent doing an excellent job in explaining it to others. Her passion was reformation and
policy change. She had to figure out how she was going to communicate her intelligence
on a level where people would listen and understand. Fast forward through the sellout of
her first edition and the implementation of her book in 472 schools, universities have
found value within the book (E. Wardle, personal communication, September
28, 2015). This shows that she gained enough credibility as an author and professor
which enabled her to persuade others through her book that the ideas presented had value
and the change in teaching she initially pushed for would be for the better (MacLennnan,

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

2008, p. 26). Communication played a large role in this process because it was the
lifeline in how she stayed up to date with her colleagues, book publisher, and editor. It
was the literal words within those pages that gave life to ideas she presented in the book.
It made people care about what she was saying, and it all trickled down from figuring out
what she wanted to say and how she was going to say it.
Conclusion
For Dr. Wardle, professional writing and communication looks and feels like
yearly journal submission, email dialogues between faculty members, revised syllabi, a
shared goggle document with cross-county colleges on a new chapter of an upcoming
book, and a detailed list of suggestion and comments on a students paper. While each
documents has different purposes, they all relate back to who she is as a professional and
the communication she has within her community. She wasnt the type of author I was
originally interested in, but she did expose me to elements of the work force that has
influenced me to be a better professional, which is much more important. I learned how
to adapt my passion to the work that I am given, appreciate group collaboration, and be
an influential leader though my interactions with others. Dr. Wardle is a very unique
individual with goals and has learned to work her way up the latter of success to the point
where her voice and opinion carries weight and people listen to her. In every occupation I
have in my life, I want that type of respect which is why I admire her and the multiple
people she has to be to get her job done. She has given me a role model with powerful
words, verbal and written, to follow after. Through communication, we have the power
to change the worldwhether we know it or not, our words matter (MacLennnan,
2008, p. 26).

HOW I COMMUNICATED WITH AN ARMY OF ONE

References
MacLennan, J. (2008). Readings for technical communication (pp. 4-28). Don Mills,
Ont.: Oxford University Press.