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Kirsti Cole

KC

she/her

Professor

Co-Director, Campus Writing and Speaking Program

Professor, English

Tompkins Hall 226

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Bio

Kirsti Cole is a professor of English and Co-Director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program at North Carolina State University, where she leads faculty development in writing studies and coordinates writing-enriched teaching across campus disciplines. Before joining NC State in 2023, she spent fifteen years at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where she served as the inaugural Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and built a composition program focused on access for teaching populations across the state and the country.

Originally from Seattle and raised as an academic brat who moved frequently across the United States and Europe, Cole earned her BA in English from the University of Montana in 2001 and her PhD in English (Rhetoric, Composition, and Literature) from Arizona State University in 2008. She also holds a graduate certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies (2008) and in Medical Writing and Editing from the University of Chicago (2021). These varied geographic and institutional experiences shaped her commitment to creating inclusive academic communities and her interest in how writers navigate different contexts and audiences.

Cole’s research addresses critical questions about how people learn to write, how writing programs can best support students and faculty, and how emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence, are reshaping writing practices and pedagogy. Through sustained collaborative partnerships with colleagues across institutions, disciplines, and career stages, she bridges theory and practice to create equitable, sustainable, and effective writing environments in higher education. These collaborative relationships are central to both her scholarship and her approach to institutional change, including long-term partnerships with Holly Hassel on academic labor and program transformation, Kristin Bivens on activism and health communication, Valerie Renegar on feminist rhetoric and motherhood studies, Chris Anson on AI and writing pedagogy, and Sarah Henderson Lee on reimagining graduate education. Working across rhetoric and composition, technical communication, gender studies, and writing program administration, these collaborations reflect her commitment to collective knowledge-making and institutional change. Her work spans rhetoric and composition theory, feminist rhetoric and public discourse, multimodal composition, and writing program administration. She teaches graduate courses in these areas and mentors doctoral students pursuing research in writing pedagogy, digital rhetoric, program administration, and feminist rhetorical theory.

Learn more at www.kirstikcole.com

Education

Ph.D. Rhetoric, Composition, and Literature Arizona State University 2008

B.A. English University of Montana, Missoula 2001

Area(s) of Expertise

Writing Pedagogy, Program Administration & Graduate Education
Writing across the curriculum | Writing program administration | Faculty development | Composition pedagogy | Writing assessment | Graduate mentorship | Rhetorical research methodologies | Sustainable graduate education

AI, Technology & Composition
Artificial intelligence and writing | Generative AI pedagogy | Multimodal composition | Digital rhetoric | Cognitive models of writing | AI ethics

Rhetoric, Public Discourse & Institutional Change
Feminist rhetoric | Public discourse analysis | Digital activism | Embodied rhetoric | Political communication | Feminist leadership | Institutional ethnography | Educational equity

Dr. Kirsti Cole describes herself as a magpie researcher, drawn to disparate questions across writing studies: from AI's impact on cognitive models of composing to stepmotherhood narratives in self-help books, from writing program assessment to political discourse on social media. The through line in her work is a consistent focus on agency, voice, and power: how writers negotiate institutional and cultural constraints, how marginalized perspectives challenge dominant discourses, and how programs and pedagogies can create more equitable spaces for composers. Her current work focuses on how artificial intelligence is transforming writing practices and composition pedagogy, investigating cognitive and rhetorical dimensions of writing with AI while developing ethical frameworks for educational AI integration. Dr. Cole teaches graduate seminars in rhetoric and composition theory, multimodal composition, writing program administration, and research methodologies, emphasizing collaborative knowledge-making and ethical dimensions of writing research and pedagogy. She mentors students pursuing research in writing pedagogy, digital rhetoric, feminist rhetorical theory, program administration, and rhetoric of health and science communication.

Publications

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