Draft:Frankie Condon

Frankie Condon, or “Dr. C”, is an award-winning scholar and teacher whose work is centered in critical race theory and composition, rhetoric, narrative, and performance studies. Dr. C is widely published in composition, rhetoric, and writing center studies, and anti-racist pedagogy. Her books include CounterStories from the Writing Center, co-edited with Wonderful Faison. In October 2023, this work received the Outstanding Book Award from the International Writing Centers Association. Dr. C’s book, I Hope I Join the Band: Narrative, Affiliation and Antiracist Rhetoric was nominated to the Top Five "Must Reads" by the Educators Award Committee of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International.

Much of Dr. C’s work chronicles her witness of the reality of racism and white supremacy from a very early age. She narrates the terrible toll exacted by racism, white supremacy, and settler-colonialism from Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color; and the wages of whiteness accruing to raced-white peoples. This awareness has shaped her research, teaching, and activism from the start of her career. A longtime activist, Dr. C advocates from raced-white accompliceship with Peoples of Colour in the struggle for racial justice. She frequently writes collaboratively and serves as an anti-racist consultant with such scholars as Vershawn Ashanti Young and Neisha-Anne Green. Together these colleagues founded the Aptly Outspoken Collective in 2020.

In 2022, Dr. C was elected Assistant Chair/2023 Program Chair for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the largest international organization of composition, rhetoric, and communication scholars in the world. In 2023 she served as Associate Chair for CCCC. In December of 2023, Dr. C became Chair of the conference.

Dr. C is an award-winning teacher whose undergraduate English courses are frequently cross-listed with Gender and Social Justice, Peace and Conflict Studies, History, and Communication Studies include “The Discourse of Dissent;” “Linguistic Imperialism,” “Introduction to Academic Writing;” and “Popular Potter.” Dr. C also teaches undergraduate Black Studies courses including “Combating Racisms;” and “Writing Anti-Racism.” She also teaches graduate courses including “Critical Race Theory;” “The Rhetoric of Violence;” “Composition Theory and Practice;” and “Rhetorics of Race and Class.”

Dr. C earned her PhD in English at the State University of New York at Albany in 2000. She directed the writing center at Siena College from 1996-2000. From 2000-2007, she directed the writing center, taught undergraduate and graduate courses, and directed the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at St. Cloud State University. From 2007 to 2013, Dr. C directed the writing center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2013, she began her tenure at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Early Life

Dr. C was born 18 July 1962 in Mount Pleasant Michigan to Robert Seymour Van Meter and Ruth Suzanne Van Meter (nee Moritz). She is the youngest of three children with her siblings, Catherine Sue Van Meter and Richard Lee Van Meter. Both of her older siblings were adopted. Her brother, Richard, is Ojibwe, born on the White Earth Reservation. He was removed from his family at birth and placed in foster care. Dr. C’s parents adopted him at three years of age. She and her siblings grew up in rural Clarion County, Pennsylvania. She attended Keystone High School and graduated from the Research Learning Center of Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Dr. C’s father was a pianist and composer and chaired the Department of Music at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Her mother was a historian and chaired the Department of History at the same university.

Today, Dr. C makes her home in Walkerton Ontario. She is married to Michael Condon and together they have three grown children: Daniel, Lucy, and Grace.

Awards

• 2023 Outstanding Book Award, CounterStories from the Writing Center, co-edited with Wonderful Faison, International Writing Centers Association
• 2021 Faculty of Arts Excellence in Teaching Award Recipient, University of Waterloo
• 2017 Federation of Students Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance)
• 2015 Outstanding Performance Award (excellence in teaching and scholarship), University of Waterloo
• 2013 Top Five "Must Reads", Educators Award Committee of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International: I Hope I Join the Band: Narrative, Affiliation, and Antiracist Rhetoric, Utah State University Press.
• 2012 Certificate of Recognition for Contributions to Students, UNL Teaching Council and Parents Association

Books

• Counterstories from the Writing Center. Co-edited with Wonderful Faison. Utah State University Press, 2022.
• Performing Anti-Racist Pedagogy in Rhetoric, Writing and Communication. Co-edited with Vershawn Ashanti Young. WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado, 2016.
• I Hope I Join the Band: Narrative, Affiliation, and Antiracist Rhetoric. Utah State University Press, March 2012.
• The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice. Coauthored with Michele Eodice, Elizabeth Boquet, Anne Ellen Geller and Margaret Carroll. Utah State University Press, January 2007

Recent Articles

• “A Mouthful of Ashes: Against Fast Anti-Racism.” College English. Forthcoming, November 2024.
• “Counterstory as research method and genre: Bean and the epic workshop fail.” SKRIB: Critical Studies in Writing Programs and Pedagogy, 1(1), 1-25. 2023.
• “Cornerstone”. Co-authored with Neisha Anne Green. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 19, No. 1, 2022.
• “A Bridge Across Our Fears: Excerpts from the Annals of Bean.” Writers: Craft and Context, V1, August 2020.
• “The Languages We May Be: Affiliative Relations and the Work of the Canadian Writing Centre.” Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie, Vol. 28, 2018. http://journals.sfu.ca/cjsdw
• “C’est Impossible/impossible n’est pas francais.” Review Essay. Writing Center Journal, 1 January 2017, vol 36(1), pp 217-234.
• “Stories to Live and Die By: In Memorium.” Survive and Thrive: A Journal of the Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine, Fall 2014.

Recent Book Chapters

• “Letters on Moving from Ally to Accomplice: Anti-racism and the Teaching of Writing” Co-authored with Neisha Anne Green. L.E. Bartlett, S. L. Tarabochia, A. R. Olinger, and M. Marshall, eds. Diverse Approaches to Teaching, Learning, and Writing Across the Curriculum: IWAC at 25. WAC Clearinghouse, 2020.
• “Critical Race Theory and the Work of Writing Centers.” Co-authored with Neisha Anne Green and Wonderful Faison. In Theories and Methods of Writing Center Studies. Co-edited by Jo Mackiewicz and Rebecca Babcock. Routledge, 2019.
• “Building a House for Linguistic Diversity: Writing Centers, English Language Teaching and Learning, and Social Justice.” Co-Authored with Bobbi Olson. Ben Rafoth and Shanti Bruce, eds. Utah State University Press. Utah State University Press, 2016.
• “Regret.” Rex L. Veeder, ed. Survive and Thrive: It Starts with the Heart. Fountainhead Press, 2013.

Recent Addresses

• Chair’s Address: Love, Hope, and Radical Imagination. Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2024. [3000 audience members in attendance]. Forthcoming, College English, December 2023

Keynote Addresses

• “Failing Sofia.” Two Year Colleges Association – Pacific Northwest. Yakima Valley College, Yakima WA, 21 October, 2023.
• “Teaching to Redress: Using the Myth of Canadian Exceptionalism to Pursue Anti-Racist Writing Instruction in Rhetoric and Composition”. Co-authored and performed with Vershawn Ashanti Young. Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing, June 2021.
• “Performing Agency, Authority, Authenticity, and Antiracism in Writing Center Work.” Keynote Address. Co-authored and performed with Vershawn Ashanti Young. Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association Conference, Rowan University, 24 March 2018.
• “The Languages We May Be.” Keynote Address: Canadian Writing Centres Association. Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto. May 2017.
• “A Season for Change: Imagining Transformative Writing Centre Labour.” Keynote Address: Northeast Writing Centers Association, Pace University, Westchester, New York. April 2017.
• “Creating Relations.” Keynote Address. Survive and Thrive Annual Conference of the Medical Humanities, October 2014.
• “Troubled Home: Writing Centers and the Work of the Writing Commons.” Keynote Address. East Central Writing Centers Association, April 2013.
• “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding.” Keynote Address. National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing. October 2009.
• “From Witness to (Re)Membering: Writing Centers and High Risk/High Yield Anti-Racism.” Keynote Address. Writing Centers and Public Space Conference Series: “Race in the Writing Center: Toward New Theory and Practice.” University of Illinois-Chicago. February 2008.
• “Ctrl Alt Del.” Co-Authored with Anne Ellen Geller, Michele Eodice, Meg Carroll, and Elizabeth Boquet. Keynote Address. Northeast Writing Centers Association Conference. April 2008