Mike Palmquist

Mike Palmquist

College of Liberal Arts
Department of English
Appointed: 2000
Office: Hartshorn 129
Phone: (970) 556-1505
Email: Mike.Palmquist@colostate.edu
Web: View Mike Palmquist's Web Page
Degrees:

  • B.A., St. Olaf College, English, Political Science, Writing, 1980
  • Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, Rhetoric, 1990

Mike Palmquist's scholarly interests include writing across the curriculum, the effects of computer and network technologies on writing instruction, and new approaches to scholarly publishing. His work has appeared in journals including College English, College Composition and Communication, ADE Bulletin, Across the Disciplines, The WAC Journal, Computers and Composition, Written Communication, Writing Program Administration, Marketing Education Review, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Kairos, and Social Forces, as well as in edited collections. 

Mike is the author of several books, including the textbooks In ConversationJoining the ConversationThe Bedford Researcher, and Designing Writing, all published by Bedford/St. Martin's. He is co-author, with Kate Kiefer, Jake Hartvigsen, and Barbara Godlew, of Transitions: Teaching Writing in Computer-Supported and Traditional Classrooms, published in 1998 by Ablex, and co-author, with Don Zimmerman, of Writing with a Computer, published in 1999 by Allyn and Bacon.

Mike helped establish the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and served as a member-at-large on its executive board from 2018 to 2021. He served as chair of the National Council of Teachers of English College Section Steering Committee and as a member of the NCTE Executive Committee from 2009 to 2011. He served as the chair of the NCTE College Section Steering Committee Working Group on the Status and Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty, whose policy statement and recommendations were endorsed by the NCTE Executive Committee and published on the NCTE website in 2010.

Within the English department, Mike has directed the University Composition Program, coordinated its graduate programs, and co-directed the Center for Research on Communication and Technology. He co-founded the Center for the Analytics of Learning and Teaching with James Folkestad in 2013 and currently serves as co-director of the Center for the Study of Academic Labor. He is the founding director of the Colorado State University Open Press and publisher of the WAC Clearinghouse (https://wac.colostate.edu). Prior to returning to his role as a faculty member in the 2020-’21 academic year, Mike served for fourteen years in various university leadership roles, including founding director of the Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT), director of CSU Online (CSU’s Division of Continuing Education), and Associate Provost for Instructional Innovation. 

Selected Teaching Awards and Recognitions

  • Distinguished Fellow, Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, 2021. This award recognizes scholars who have made significant contributions to the field of WAC through scholarship, service, and/or achievement over the course of their career.
  • Outstanding Technology Innovator, 2006. Awarded by the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication.
  • Charles Moran Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field, 2004 Awarded by Computers and Composition.
  • Computers and Writing Technology Design Competition: Best Overall Winner for Rhetoric, Literature and Writing; 2002 for Research Assistant/HyperFolio for English, by Mike Palmquist and Learn Technologies Interactive, published by Bedford/St. Martin's. 
  • N. Preston Davis Award for Instructional Innovation, Colorado State University, Spring 1999.
    Oliver P. Pennock Distinguished Service Award, Colorado State University, Fall 1998.

Teaching Activities

Professor Palmquist has focused his instructional efforts in four areas: teaching courses, developing web-based instructional resources for the teaching and learning of writing, developing web-based resources for the writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) community, and writing textbooks. He has been working since 1991 on the development of network-based instruction for the teaching and learning of writing. In 1992, with Kate Kiefer, Don Zimmerman, and Dawn Rodrigues, he began work on the Online Writing Center project. Initially a project accessible through the University's campus-wide network, the Online Writing Center moved to the web in 1996. Subsequently renamed Writing@CSU, it has become a widely used website supporting writing students and instructors (http://writing.colostate.edu). The WAC Clearinghouse (http://wac.colostate.edu), initially an extension of the Writing@CSU website has emerged as the leading website supporting Writing Across the Curriculum. Developed in collaboration with colleagues from inside and outside the U.S., the Clearinghouse provides access to several scholarly journals and more than 160 peer-reviewed scholarly books, all available in open-access digital formats (and many in print format as well), as well as resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. The Clearinghouse marked the 25th anniversary of its founding in 2022.