Professional Bio
Tennyson O'Donnell (B.A. Brigham Young University-Hawai'i; M.A. California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo; Ph.D. Syracuse University) began teaching at Mississippi State University in 2005. He has served as director of the Writing Center and trains all writing center staff. He was raised on Oahu, Hawai'i, and lived in Samoa during the fourth through seventh grades. His doctoral work focuses on the history of rhetoric, rhetorical criticism, composition pedagogy, issues of literacy and society, and writing program administration. His dissertation examined text-context relationships extending from a rhetorical analysis of an unpublished history of Catholic sisters from New York working to administer relief to Hawaiians stricken with Hansen's disease in the late 1800s. He has made numerous scholarly and instructional presentations at forums including the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Hawai'i International Conference for Arts and Humanities, and the Watson conference on Rhetoric. He has taught composition and research writing courses, upper division courses in the rhetoric of academic research and writing, and an introductory course to researching and writing in the English major. Over the last eight years he has taught at private and public universities in Hawai'i, California and New York. He intends to publish an edited collection of writings focusing on the rhetorics of the Pacific, and write a composition reader that offers methods of rhetorical analysis as a way for students to write more original claims.
Education:
Ph.D. Syracuse University
M.A. California Polytechnic State University at San Obispo
B.A. Brigham Young University
Teaching Interests:
Rhetoric and composition
Courses:
