Student Profiles: Ashley Patriarca
I earned my B.A.s in English and Communication Studies from the University
of Alabama at Birmingham in 2003 and my M.A. in English with a concentration
in technical and professional writing from the University of North Carolina
at Charlotte in 2007. During my time at UNC Charlotte, I taught two courses
in freshman composition, including ‘Writing in the Academic Community,’ which
prepares students for writing research-based academic arguments in future courses. As
vice-president of the UNC Charlotte English Graduate Student Association, I
organized the EGSA’s 2007 conference, which focused on the concept of
the mask in literature, language, and other fields.
My current research interests include professional communication, visual rhetoric, and public service within the field of communication. My background in journalism often inspires me to examine rhetoric used by members of print media, especially given the consideration given to public service within that profession. One of my on-going projects is a case study of how staff members of The New Orleans Times-Picayune used innovative methods to provide the traditional public service of communication to its readers immediately after Hurricane Katrina. In this time of crisis, the newspaper staffers made unprecedented uses of multimedia (hypertext and blogs, for example) while clinging to the newspaper’s established visual design, publishing Acrobat files of its pages.