Biography

Like many people, I had a lot of anxiety about writing when I was in college.  That memory coupled with years of graduate training make me particularly adept at coaching students about how to improve their writing.  89.7 % of businesses surveyed for the Workplace Readiness Report Card (2006) found that  strong written communication skills are “very important” for four-year college graduates.  I help students learn how to write in different ways for different situations, using words, images, and videos when appropriate. 

Courses Taught

Undergraduate courses:

• Students in Prof. Bomberger's English 211 (Advanced Composition) get experience writing "real world" documents:  See some of the professional work they created: The Erie-GAINS Newsletter and The Gannon Goes Green Newsletter.
• Students in her first-year seminar (English 100: Intergenerational Dialogues) interviewed senior citizens at Villa Maria Apartments and created video profiles of them.
• English 206: Pursuits of English allows students to learn about all of the possible careers for English majors while developing the core skills they will need to be successful in the major.
• English 240: Leadership Studies: How Leaders Communicate: Students create a video for their a local on campus or off campus site.
• LENG 111 and LENG 112 prepares students from all majors for the demands of college-level writing.
• LENG 241 and 247 prepares students from all majors to be careful readers and to think about how literature relates to their lives.

Graduate courses:

• Students in her Graduate Seminar in African American literature interviewed senior citizens who were involved in Erie's civil rights movement and created videos.  See an example on Gannon's Edge magazine.
• Graduate students in Research and Composing studied how computers are impacting communication.  Students created videos connecting the theory they were reading with their personal experiences.  One student, for example, explored the intersections of teaching dance and composition, while another investigated the connections between gaming and creative writing.  They also crafted a proposal for original research that they might conduct for their master's thesis.

Educational History

• SUNY Stony Brook, PhD in English, "The Politics of Cross-Racial Writing in Contemporary African American and White Women's Historical Fiction," 1997.
• Allegheny College, BA in English, cum laude, 1990.

Professional Societies

National Council of Teachers of English

Publications

• Bomberger, Ann and Vesta Silva.  Raise Your Voice: Composing Written and Spoken Arguments.  Spokane, WA: Marquette Books, 2012. Print.
• Bomberger, Ann. "Ranting about race: Crushed eggshells in computer-mediated communication." Computers and Composition 21.2 (June 2004). 197-216. Print.
• Bomberger, Ann. "The Efficacy of Shock for Feminist Politics: Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School and Donald Barthelme's Snow White." Gender Reconstructions: Pornography and Perversions in Literature and Culture. Eds. Cindy L. Carlson, Robert L. Mazzola, and Susan M. Bernardo. Ashgate, 2001. Print.
• Bomberger, Ann. "The Servant and the Served: Ellen Douglas's Can't Quit You, Baby." Southern Literary Journal Fall 1998. Print.
• Bomberger, Ann. 'If I Was Colored . . . I'd Know Who I Was!': Yearning White Women, Guilt, and the Past." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 27.6 (November 1998). Print.

Academic presentations:

• "Unabashed Interlopers--Composition Poaching in Public Relations Land with the Help of Service-Learning: The Erie-GAINS Newsletter Project," College English Association, Richmond, VA March 29-31, 2012.
• with Shay Meinzer, "Which stories get told?”  Public relations in Community Development Initiatives with Shay Meinzer at PA Campus Compact, 2011.
• "Composing written and spoken arguments: Collaborating across disciplines” at the SUNY Council on Writing Annual meeting in Binghamton, NY, 2011.
• “Remixing Empathy & Challenge in First-year Students’ Reflections on Commonality & Difference,” Conference on College Composition and Communication (March 19th, 2010).
• “Electronic Commenting on Student Projects: Tips and Theory” at the Mid Atlantic Educause conference on Jan. 13, 2010. (http://www.educause.edu/Community/MemDir/Profiles/AnnBomberger/138215).
• Roundtable Discussant, "Real Writing Worlds of Students," NCTE, Indianapolis, IN, November 2004.
• Co-presenter at Colloquium Vinosum, "Service-Learning: A Vehicle For Deeper Learning," Allegheny College, November 2004 (with Don Goldstein).
• Participant in Computers in Writing Intensive Classrooms, June 2004.
• Participant in crafting an Action Plan for Service-Learning at Allegheny College at Pennsylvania Campus Compact's Service-Learning Institute, April 2002 (with Dave Roncolato, Elizabeth Weiss-Ozorak, Karen Hoerst, and Andy Bennett).
• "Service-Learning in First-Year Seminars: Adding Coherence to Multifunctional Courses" presenter and chair of panel, CCCC Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, March 2002.
• "Virtual Flames/Real Pain: Racist, Homophobic, and Sexist Remarks in Course-Related Computer-Mediated Communication, " 21st Annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching, November 2001.
• Upgrading the Server: Reanimating the Liberal Arts Through Computer-Mediated Pedagogy," in collaboration with Ben Slote, Karen Stone, and Susan Fenton," Degrees of Value: Technology, Markets, and the Aims of Education at the Association of American Colleges and Universities Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, January 2001.
• Tidying Class and Racial Boundaries: Representations of Domestic Service," British Association of American Studies Annual Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, March 1999.
• "Passing Through Europe: Race and National Identity in James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room," American Studies Association of Turkey Annual Conference, Mersin, Turkey, November 1998.
• Cementing Community Through The Con: Sherley Anne Williams's Give Birth to Brightness and Dessa Rose," Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, Louisville, KY, February 1997.
• "The Servant and the Served: Ellen Douglas's Can't Quit You, Baby, or, White Feminists Writing About Race," Celebrating Difference/ Exploring Commonality: Women's Studies in the '90s, South Central Women's Studies Association Conference, Oklahoma City, OK, March 1996; Faculty Works-In-Progress Seminar, Georgia Institute of Technology, January 1996.
• "White Women in a White Institution: Issues of Race in the Hiring Practices of Academia," Reweaving Women's Colors: Scholarship, Curriculum and Our Lives, National Women's Studies Association Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., June 1993.
• "The Little Woman Goes to War: Louisa May Alcott's Short Civil War Fiction." Cemeteries and Spaces of Death Graduate Student Conference, Riverside, CA, April 1993.
• "The Problem With Menus: The White Feminist Critic and Multicultural Studies," Brave New Worlds For Women, New York Women's Studies Association Conference, Stony Brook, NY, March 1993.
• "Daddy's Little Girl (wink, wink): The Eroticized Child and the Infantilized Woman in Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School," Disordering the Disciplines, Fifth Annual National Graduate Student Conference, SUNY at Stony Brook, October 1992.

Service

• She and Dr. Homan from Gannon's environmental science program are helping three graduate students create the GreenERie PA website, a portal to help individuals and businesses connect with all things green in Erie.  The site will launch in November of 2012.  The site is being funded by a grant from Erie's Community Foundation and by Gannon University.  This is a project that sprang from her work on the Erie-GAINS Sustainability subcommittee.
• Member, Gannon Goes Green Committee, Martin Luther King Celebration Steering Committee, Library Committee, Student Success Grant Leadership  Committee, and the English department Recruitment and Retention committee.
• Chair of the Literature Core Assessment committee.
• Volunteer librarian and secretary of the Parent Group for the Erie Day School.
• One of the key organizers of the workshop at the national composition conference (CCCC) Developing Long-Term, Reciprocal Relationships with Community Partners, 2009.