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From Ralph Wahlstrom: In 1996 I earned my doctorate in Rhetoric and Technical Communication from Michigan Technological University. Before that, I was the director of Student Support Services at UW-Superior and Mount Senario College, and I kept up my love of music, songwriting, and performing. Leading up to and during college I was half of the club duo not so originally called Ralph & Geno. Later I played banjo, guitar, and mandolin and sang in a fiddle and Western Swing band called Hamlin Garland. When I started my doctoral studies I spent my weekdays away from my family, so I had time to write and record songs, many of which dealt with my disciplinary journey. “Damned Foucault”, which appeared in Computers & Composition in 1996, was a musical sketch of my doctoral reading list. I continued to write songs about my life at that time and presented “Composish” at the 2002 Computers & Writing Conference as part of my presentation on the Rhetorical Paideia. My other songs in this rare genre include “The Rhetorical Cowboy”, “Four C’s Blues”, and “Still an English Major”. I joined Buffalo State College in 1997 as Director of the Writing Program, served as English Department Chair from 2007-2012 and hold the rank of Professor in the department. When I arrived, there was no writing program or writing center. Within a year I had found a room, put up a sign, and recruited half a dozen volunteer student tutors. The Writing Program grew to include five full-time and numerous part-time faculty, and the Writing Center remains to this day a place to develop student tutors/teachers and provide help to writers. Although I am no longer the Writing Center director, I am the creator and co-director of the college’s writing major. I was raised in Michigan’s glorious Upper Peninsula, and make my home in Buffalo, New York.
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