Staff
Kay Emmert (she/her) has been serving as co-director of the PPW since spring 2020, following 3 years as Associate Director. Throughout her tenure, she has dedicated herself to enhancing student retention rates and expanding course offerings to meet the evolving needs of partner programs across campus. In addition to her role in revising established courses, she designs writing curricula tailored to the specific requirements of collaborative partners campus-wide. She has partnered with the ATLAS Internship Program to design an internship success course tailored to enhance the communication skills and career-readiness of first-time interns in LAS. Launched in fall of 2023, the course exceeded initial projections, with demand more than doubling in less than a year. She co-authored an article for the 2023 edition of Composition Studies, highlighting the curriculum revision processes at the intersection of contingent faculty labor, developments in writing studies, and the challenges of designing large-scale multi-section courses. Demonstrating her commitment to advancing writing program administration, Kay addressed the role of non-tenure track faculty in curriculum development at the 2023 MLA Conference as part of a CWPA panel. In 2021, she collaborated with program faculty on a grant examining the role of emotion in business writing, presenting their findings at the Writing and Well-Being Conference in 2022.
Hilary Selznick (she, her) began her role as the Associate Director of the Professional Writing Program in Spring 2024. As the Associate Director, Hilary mentors and orients new and experienced BTW instructors to PPW’s business communication curriculum. In addition, she coordinates professional development workshops, designs and revises PPW courses, and assists in writing program administration. Her teaching and research focus generally on writing studies and technical communication. She recently presented her work in these areas at the 2023 Teachers of Technical Communication Conference and the 2024 Rhetoric Society of America Conference. In addition, her teaching is informed by social justice pedagogies, specifically in accessibility, inclusivity, and disability justice which is a lens she brings with her to the Professional Writing Program. She also designs workshop on accessibility and inclusive pedagogy in community and educational settings, her most recent at UIUC’s Office for Access and Equity. She is also a recipient of the 2023 English Department’s Undergraduate Teaching Award.
Cassidy Short (she/her) joined the Program in Professional Writing as the Assistant Director in the fall of 2023. In this role, she develops, expand, and strengthens instructor resources via navigable online databases. Furthermore, she recruits, advocates for, and supports graduate instructors, while also assisting the administrative agendas of the Co-Directors. She has collaborated with the BTW program on a grant dedicated to researching alternative assessment approaches in professional writing courses. She is also a recipient of the 2024 English Department’s Undergraduate Teaching Award.