Online Tutorial Faculty 2026
Brenda Brueggemann, BA, MA, University of Kansas; PhD, University of Louisville. Professor and Aetna Chair of Writing, University of Connecticut.
Brenda Jo Brueggemann is currently the Aetna Endowed Chair of Writing and a faculty member in the Department of English, Affiliate Faculty in Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and American Studies at the University of Connecticut.
She is the Co-Editor of Disability Studies Quarterly—the first journal, and the international journal of record, for the field of Disability Studies. In the early 2000s, she initiated programs in Disability Studies and American Sign Language at The Ohio State University.
Her scholarly publications include nine (9) books authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited and over 80 articles or book chapters. Numerous awards and grants for service, teaching, and research have occurred throughout her public and academic career; they have all been related to her work in Disability Studies and Deaf Studies. In 1995, she was one of the principal people in forming the first academic institutional committee and initiatives for “Disability Studies” in higher education with the Modern Language Association. She has served as the Chair of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS) the MLA Committee on Disability Issues, and the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees.
As a native western Kansas farm girl who also happened to grow up deaf (and who was also a first-generation college student), Brueggemann has always been committed to equity and inclusion –and disability rights—in higher education and across global and American settings. She began her teaching career as a high school German, Journalism, and American Literature teacher.
Rochelle Johnson, BA, Bates College; MA, PhD, Claremont Graduate University. Bernie McCain Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Environmental Studies, The College of Idaho.
Rochelle L. Johnson (she/her) is Bernie McCain Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Environmental Studies at the College of Idaho. Recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for her teaching, Rochelle earned the Idaho Humanities Council’s 2024 Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities Award and has held three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Her writings on 19th-century landscape aesthetics, place-based pedagogy, and natural history appear in various journals and anthologies. Winner of the Georgia Review Prose Prize in creative nonfiction for 2025, Rochelle is a past president of both the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) and The Thoreau Society. See more at rochellejohnsonwriter.com.
Cruz Medina, BA, University of California, Santa Barbara; MFA/MA, Chapman University; PhD, University of Arizona. Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, Santa Clara University.
Cruz Medina is associate professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Santa Clara University. Cruz served as co-chair of the NCTE/CCCC Latinx Caucus from 2017-2021. He has been Bread Loaf School of English faculty since 2016 and was awarded the M. Ruth Marino chair in 2017 for teaching innovation. His monograph Reclaiming Poch@ Pop: Examining the Rhetoric of Cultural Deficiency was published in 2015 by Palgrave. His current research applies decolonial methods and CRT to a volunteer English program with predominantly Indigenous Guatemalan students.
Cheryl Savageau, BS, Clark University; MA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Poet, Memoirist, Storyteller, Artist.
Cheryl Savageau is a poet, memoirist, visual artist, and content creator on Youtube and Substack. Her collection of poetry, Dirt Road Home, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the Paterson Prize. Savageau’s work has been widely anthologized, and she has received Fellowships in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, and is a four-time Fellow at MacDowell. Her art has been exhibited at the Abbé Museum in Bar Harbor and most recently at Brown University. Her memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, came out in paperback in June, 2025. She is currently working on a collection of ekphrastic poems based on the art of Tarot cards, and a collaborative collection with poet Carol Bachofner, The Last Love Letter.