February 3, 2023
Graduating from Shawnee State University in 2021, Allen Barnhart decided to return to his alma mater to enroll in the university’s new Master of Arts in Composition & Rhetoric. Originally a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Barnhart has lived in Portsmouth, Ohio for almost a decade and considers it home. He originally chose to attend SSU for his undergraduate degree knowing it was close to home and because he enjoyed the beauty of campus.
Enrolling in the Composition & Rhetoric program, Barnhart found the degree to be a way for his to explore his love or writing.
“A lot of the writing I did when I was in college was for the tabletop-roleplaying games I would run,” he said. “Later, I took Dr. Jennifer Napper's Biotechnology course, and she had the class write a very long scientific literature review paper. At first it seemed like it would be very difficult, and it wasn't easy, but I was able to use the same design principles to write my paper. That had me hooked.”
Beginning in the Summer 2022 semester, SSU began offering both a Master of Arts in the Composition & Rhetoric program as well as a graduate certificate.
“When I found out that Shawnee was starting a composition program I was immediately sold,” said Barnhart.
Wanting to use his degrees to teach at the university-level, Barnhart is currently teaching a section of Discourse & Composition as an adjunct faculty member at SSU. Pairing together that experience with what he is learning in his graduate classes, he is looking forward to completing his degree and pursuing his next teaching opportunity.
“This experience should make me a much stronger applicant and I'm glad that I had this opportunity,” he said.
SSU’s Composition & Rhetoric program is offered completely online and students work individually with faculty members to develop either a master’s thesis or master’s portfolio. Students enrolled in the program will study how to teach writing, the history of rhetoric, research methods in English composition, special topics in the field, and writing assessment theory and practice. The program is ideal for those teachers wanting to teach in Ohio’s College Credit Plus program, teachers who wants to teach courses at universities and community colleges in the region, or those pursuing a Ph.D. program in English composition, education, or a related field.
To learn more about the Composition & Rhetoric program at Shawnee State University, visit shawnee.edu/online.