Category: 2024 Fond Farewells

by Nancy Johnson, WWU English Department (1994-2019)

Professor Donna Qualley

In the fall of 1994, after traveling cross-country from New Hampshire and settling into a salmon-orange rental on South State Street, Dr. Donna J. Qualley stepped into the Humanities Building for what would become an almost three-decade career of stellar teaching and service at Western. Yet back then, all our “class” of new hires knew was where our offices were located (Donna settled into HUM 319 for the next 29.33 years), when new faculty orientation started, and maybe, just maybe, where to find coffee on campus. We had little clue of our longevity at WWU, nor the trajectory of our careers. Nor did we know the impact and enormous contributions Donna would make at Western and in the field — teacher extraordinaire, masterful and dedicated mentor, director of composition for more years than expected, and friend across campus, in the department, the classroom, and in the broader composition teaching/research community.  

Donna and I were hired in 1994 within weeks of each other. I distinctly remember English Department Chair Rick Emmerson’s comment when he offered me the Elementary English Education job: “You’ll really like the new hire in Secondary English Education. I bet you’ll become good friends.” Such a spot-on prediction! Not only a friend, I also became an ardent admirer of Donna’s knowledge, her commitment to teaching and learning, and her work ethic, and I treasured the hours we talked about books we loved, what challenged us, even what we found problematic about our work. In fact, I still do. Everyone should be so fortunate to have such a colleague and forever friend, even beyond retirement.  

And yet, I’m guessing not everyone in the English Department–current and past faculty, staff, and students–knows the other careers, interests, and experiences that directly (and indirectly) influenced Donna’s 30 years at WWU. These include:

Teacher/Librarian: While the market for teachers in the US was dire in the 1970s, there was a teacher shortage in Australia. With her newly earned BA and teaching credentials in tow, Donna took advantage of a recruitment program airlifting teachers from the US (filling three jumbo jets!) and settling them in mostly rural areas of Australia to kick-start their careers. Donna landed in Moe, Victoria, Australia, population less than 20,000, where she spent the next 9.33 years first as an English and history teacher and then a librarian. She introduced her students and colleagues to pioneers in young adult literature, authors such as John Donovan and his groundbreaking I’ll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. Over thirty years later she stepped into teaching YA Literature at Western, introducing undergrads to a new wave of YA authors and books. As with all of Donna’s teaching, she read (and read) deeply and widely, and created syllabi that invited students to develop thoughtful, appreciative, and critical knowledge and appreciation for literature written for teens. 

Cowgirl/Farmer: A horse fanatic as a child, Donna kept scrapbooks with clippings of Kentucky Derby winners (fun fact: she remains a Kentucky Derby fan today) and hankered to become a cowgirl. That dream was rekindled in Australia, prompted when she rented a little house from a local dairy. After the school day ended, Donna would help with the dairy runs, driving Clydesdale horses to deliver milk. Later she moved in with friends who purchased a 500-acre sheep farm. Then she moved to a place where a woman owned New Forest ponies. And in there somewhere was help with house building and more time working with sheep and goats and even a short stint owing a horse. 

Waitress/Roadie: Donna left Australia and returned to the US in 1983 where she took on a few new jobs before beginning doctoral work at the University of New Hampshire. One was a more traditional job–waitress; the other, less so–roadie. With the strength of her Australian farmer muscles, she helped load and unload trucks, and set up and dismantled equipment while traveling and working as a roadie for notable musicians, including pop singer Engelbert Humperdinck, singer-entertainer Wayne Newton, and the rock band INXS. 

Ten years later, following completion of a doctorate at the University of New Hampshire and numerous years teaching as an adjunct, she accepted a position as assistance professor in the English Department at WWU and moved to Bellingham to begin a nearly thirty-year career. Now, we celebrate her accomplished career and abundant contributions that include:   

Contributions to the Department

Over our mutual careers, Donna transitioned from Secondary English Education and advising (with well over a hundred advisees), to a many year focus on composition and service as Director of Comp (and not just for one term — she stepped in again and again leading and directing the Eng 101 program when the need arose) and mentor to oh, so many grad students, many who would go on to careers in writing studies themselves. It seems important, even mandatory, to pay tribute to Donna’s heroic and long-term contributions to the department in this role and to also acknowledge her commitment to behind-the-scenes matters, such as offering keen eyes and sharp insight to scheduling, attentive reading and review of colleagues’ files, and dedication of hours and commitment to committee work.   

The impact of Donna’s dedication, smarts, and effectiveness as a leader, teacher, and mentor (to students and colleagues) is hard to measure, yet certain to be missed. She was our need-something-done-and-done-well colleague. And she’s irreplaceable, that’s for sure.

Contributions to Western

Donna championed writing studies not only in the department but across campus. Her focus on writing processes and pedagogy was a hallmark of her contributions to the field of composition studies, and marked significant contributions to writing studies at WWU. For example, in 1998 along with Carmen Werder (University Writing Center Program) and Gary McKinney (Institutional Assessment Office), she published a paper on writing assessment at WWU based on a Washington state-wide and multiple-year writing project engaging participants from all the baccalaureate institutions reading and rating senior-level writing samples. The statement outlined their findings about student writing at WWU and proposed specific recommendations for a university writing program at WWU. Donna’s enduring commitment to enhancing writing instruction, not only in first-year writing courses but across WWU at all levels, culminated in her leadership of the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) where she spearheaded a sweeping, and pending, proposal for revising general education writing requirements.

Contributions to the Profession

Donna is not a self-promoter, even though she’s done plenty deserving of shout-out attention. Her high regard and contribution as a vigorous supporter for writing studies expands beyond the Humanities Building and Western’s campus into the wider professional community. It’s noteworthy that her book, Turns of Thought: Teaching Composition as Reflexive Inquiry(Heinemann, 1997), remains one of the most influential and foundational books in composition studies. Over 25 years since its publication, this thoughtful and philosophical analysis, practical demonstration, and personal reflection about reflexivity remains a hallmark of Donna’s teaching, learning, and thinking. 

Respect for Donna as a thinker, teacher, and scholar earned her selection as one of 45 writing researchers from the US and other countries to participate in the Elon University Research Seminar on Critical Transitions and the Question of Transfer held at Elon University, North Carolina over the course of two years in 2011–2013. Her research project centered on examining the transition from first-year writing courses, but she was also engaged in the collective study of transition in multiple contexts. The seminar produced an influential statement on transfer in writing studies and findings which were presented in multiple professional contexts including the Conference on College and Communication (CCCC) and the International Scholarship of Teaching (ISSOTL). Donna’s work in this high-profile writing studies seminar also highlighted her previous and ongoing focus on the importance of designing effective writing instruction, not only in first-year writing instruction but across multiple disciplines and courses.

Writing this tribute for Donna has involved a fair bit of reflexive inquiry (Donna would delight in this!). Personally, it afforded me a chance to reflect on our nearly thirty years as colleagues and our over thirty years as friends. It also offered me a chance to do some sly “interviewing” during our weekly walk-and-talk, turning on my phone to record while inquiring about her life before WWU (Donna might be dismayed by this!). While I confirmed and extended what I already knew (or thought I knew) about Donna, and as I wrote this tribute of admiration, appreciation, and friendship, I offered a silent thank you to the English Department members who, in the winter of 1994, had the wisdom to offer Donna Qualley a position as assistant professor. And, I offer a hearty and heartfelt thank you to Donna for choosing Western as her professional home, and contributing years of above-and-beyond teaching, scholarship and service. 

On one of our walks not long after she retired, Donna reflected on what she was feeling, quoting from the end of The Lord of the Rings, when Aragon states, “The time of the elves is over,” in reference to the Elves’ diminishing presence in Middle-earth. I hope I assured her that, while it might feel that way initially, in truth that’s just a fantasy. While Donna’s physical presence on campus might be diminishing, we all know there is powerful and enduring resonance from her contributions. And aren’t we the lucky ones to have reaped the rewards from these — and from her?    

With gratitude and admiration we wish you the best on your retirement, Donna!

by Dawn Dietrich

Professor Donna Qualley

Donna Qualley (or DQ) and I have been office neighbors for at least a decade–but long before that our friendship grew out of our shared interest in the intersection of writing studies/rhetoric and digital culture. Our conversations were always interesting because we came from different disciplinary backgrounds (Writing/Literacy Studies and Literature/Film); and while we frequently saw correspondences between our relative fields the differences were even more fun to discuss.  I loved our exchange of ideas as we caught conversations between classes or while waiting for meetings, as many faculty do. And, anyone who knows Donna knows that “catching” her was easy, because her door was always open when she was there–and she was there A LOT! Every day, all day, when she was the Director of Composition. Donna and I enjoyed discussions ranging from digital pedagogies to remix aesthetics, book design to graphic novels—snatches of conversation we basically stole because we were always “busy with other things.” But, beware, friends: in those fleeting interstices, an entire career unspools.

Some of you may not know that Donna moved into administrative work as soon as she arrived at WWU in 1994. In her first year, she became the Secondary English Education advisor when the current professor left Western a week before the start of fall quarter. The next year, she became the Director of Composition, a position she held for fifteen of the next twenty years. During this long tenure, we ended up in overlapping graduate administrative positions during 2005-2008, a happy accident that deepened our friendship and turned us into departmental collaborators. As the Writing Program Administrator for the English 101 program, Donna’s responsibilities included yearly curriculum creation and the development of customized English 101 essay collections; ongoing teacher preparation for our TAs in the program (Comp Camp, weekly staff meetings, end-of-quarter student paper readings, teaching English 513—and occasionally donning her Harry Potter Sorting Hat!); and multi-year mentorship and advising. At this time, the WPA was also responsible for overseeing the 200-level GUR writing courses, leading to Donna’s serving as a permanent member of the Teaching Faculty Committee.

DQ’s Sorting Hat

In 2005, I stepped in as the department’s Director of Graduate Studies, and Donna and I, along with our wonderful Graduate Program Manager, Aline Franklin, sought to build on our already robust program, while being responsive to our students’ evolving needs. We collaborated on everything from recruitment and retention to admission criteria, advising, and curriculum development—not without disagreement, certainly—but always with a goal of finding a productive path forward. Oh, the conversations! Of significant importance to us was diversifying the program in as many ways as possible to optimize the learning environment for everyone. And, while living in Bellingham wasn’t inexpensive in 2005-2008, it was still possible to recruit nationally with our graduate funding. We welcomed students from Florida, North Carolina, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, Utah, Montana, and Texas. At the time, it was rare to have WWU students in the program. We also appreciated welcoming graduate students with a diversity of ages and life experiences; we found it created a rich cohort and the opportunity for unique conversations and mentoring possibilities, among other things. 

At this point in Donna’s career, she had already developed a reputation for mentoring strong teachers, who were successful in obtaining tenure-track jobs in high schools and community colleges and/or who were accepted into Ph.D. programs in Composition and Rhetoric (some of whom eventually stepped into Writing Program Administration positions or other adjacent fields). Regional community colleges sought WWU English graduates for their stellar preparation as teachers and writing instructors and often solicited applications from our students.

Donna still regularly hears from former students expressing their appreciation for her teaching, mentoring, and advising. She was particularly known for her yearly annotated syllabus and notebook, of which I also received a copy.  Students have attested that they returned to it again and again, as they moved into their professional careers. Here is an excerpt from one such student, an email from former graduate student George Such (2012), who wrote to Donna in 2020, when he was teaching at Rutgers.

“I am writing this note to express my gratitude for the education that you provided for all of us during the years I attended Western many years ago. Recently I have been meandering through my copy of “The Notebook,” lingering on pages here and there, enjoying not only the nitty-gritty details of teaching writing, but all the photos, cartoons, and quotations, features that give the notebook a yearbook quality. I’m noticing details that I missed when I was a student and I’m being rewarded by rereading the text now. I appreciate the fact that there is something I have to reread, as had you not been put in the situation to take over the composition program in 2011, I would not have been able to benefit from the useful tome that rests in front of me as I type these words. So, thank you DQ for all the careful compiling that went into its creation and the memories that are linked to it. Your teaching continues to enrich my teaching and that is something I celebrate.”

Another DQ ritual that was uniquely hers was the tradition of giving each graduate student a personal book from her own collection–replete with marginalia! She worked very hard to customize the choices, based on her knowledge of her students’ interests and passions and could almost always find the “perfect” text to delight them upon graduation. This “graduation” ceremony took place at WWU’s Lakewood facility, situated on the beautiful shores of Lake Whatcom, and was accompanied by an overflowing potluck laid out for the celebrants.

Jamie Rogers accepts her book from Donna Qualley (2008).

A Happy Graduation hug from Donna Qualley (2008)

Over the years, Donna and I couldn’t have been more proud of our graduate students’ achievements in their fields ranging from creative writing/editing and publishing to literature, linguistics, technical writing, English Education, and film/media studies. Our deepest pleasure in sustaining such long careers in teaching has certainly been the relationships we have established and maintained with our former students. And, as happens with academic posts, when we eventually moved on from our collaboration, taking up different leadership roles over the years, we gradually found that our wonderful students had become our stellar colleagues. Now, the greatest pleasure in attending a conference is not to present our research but to connect with the amazing WWU alums who at one time or another found root in our English graduate program. We are thankful for all of the learning we did together, and for the immeasurable gifts they brought to us—many of which they will never know. This fall, in fact, after a highly competitive national search, the English department will welcome Jamie Rogers (2005) in a tenure-track position in Film Studies. And, below, you see Donna Qualley attending the Conference on College Composition & Communication 2024 (Spokane, WA), encircled by former students who studied in the English graduate program and who have since gone on to careers in Writing Program Administration and Composition and Rhetoric. Truly, the circle has come fully round. Congratulations on your retirement, Donna Qualley!

Donna Qualley at CCCC with left to right: Kiera Squires, Donna Qualley, LeAnne Laux Bachand, Heidi Aijala, and Lauren Hatch (2024).

by Jane Wong

Professor Brenda Miller and Barnaby

A fellow writer sent me a text earlier this year that read: “wait, you work with THE BRENDA MILLER?!” – the all-caps his emphasis. THE BRENDA MILLER is a creative nonfiction icon, known in the field for her innovative work on the lyric essay form. Julie Marie Wade, Brenda’s former student (MA, 2003) writes of her work: “Once I began reading Brenda Miller’s essays, it was official: there could be no turning back for me. I was determined to follow, as diligently as I could, in the soft, wise, lyric footsteps that stretched before me.” 

Those footsteps echo brilliantly across Brenda’s 25 years in the English Department at Western Washington University. Before I began my position at WWU, I had already been a fan of Brenda’s, having read essay collections like Blessing of the Animals (Carnegie Mellon, 2009). Brenda’s essays make the ordinary extraordinary—they listen to the tiny hummingbird’s heart.  In 2017, I was starting the seeds of my own memoir and I remember being so excited to become colleagues with such a visionary essayist. In addition to being highly respected in the creative nonfiction genre, Brenda — as I’d come to know — is also a brilliant educator, generous advocate, thoughtful colleague, and caring friend. We are so lucky to have her here at WWU. 

Brenda co-coined the term “the hermit crab essay” in 2003, which is a form widely taught in creative nonfiction courses. An advocate for creative collaboration and genre hybridity, she has collaborated with Suzanne Paola on Tell It Slant (now in its third edition) and with Julie Marie Wade on Telephone: Essays in Two Voices. Brenda is also an accomplished poet! In an interview on The Rumpus, Brenda writes: “In my most exciting (for me) work right now, I’m writing collaboratively, which bypasses the mind entirely and creates pieces that have no allegiance to established genre norms.” 

Brenda’s openness to hybrid forms lends itself to her classroom, as she is passionate about curiosity and revision/re-visioning. In her creative writing classes, Brenda emphasizes the importance of the writing process. On process and its moments of surprise, curiosity, and emotional depth, she writes: “Revelation, or discovery, emerges organically from the writing; the essay now seems to reveal information about the writer, rather than the writer revealing these tidbits directly to the reader.” 

Her pedagogy is also centered in long-term mentorship and community building, which allows for the vulnerable aspects of writing creative nonfiction to flourish through rigorous craft. So many of Brenda’s former students speak to the impact she has had on their creative, professional, and personal lives. Kaitlyn Teer, a former student (MFA, 2015) and teaching faculty member says: “I first came to know Brenda Miller through her books. Before ever stepping foot into her classroom, I was her student — as is the case for the many Tell it Slant readers who have learned invaluable lessons on writing craft from Brenda. What a delight, then, to discover that she is as generous, warm, and wise a teacher in person as she is on the page. I feel so fortunate to have studied with her during my MFA program and to have benefited from her support in my early years as a writing instructor. She has since become a dear friend and remains one of my favorite people to write alongside. I’m grateful for her influence, which has shaped my work and my writing life, and I can’t wait to witness what she writes in this next chapter of life.” 

There’s such an abundance of accolades and publications to list; these are just a few: Brenda is the author of six essay collections, most recently A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form (University of Michigan Press, 2021). Her book of collaborative essays with Julie Marie Wade, Telephone: Essays in Two Voices, won the Cleveland State Poetry Center Award for an essay collection and was published in 2021. She co-authored Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction  (Third Edition 2019) and The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World. Her poetry chapbook, The Daughters of Elderly Women, received the 2020 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her work has received seven Pushcart Prizes (the most recent Pushcart is for this year, 2024!). She received her MFA from the University of Montana and her Ph.D. from the University of Utah. She also served as a former Editor-in-Chief of Bellingham Review.

Along with being a dedicated Professor and colleague at WWU, Brenda also fosters rescue dogs, gardens, makes delicious soups, paints, and sings for hospice care. Her caring personhood is evident in her pedagogy, as she has “delight duty” for each of her students in her current class ENG 598: Teaching Creative Writing. Whenever I see students carrying flowers or candy or stickers, I know this abundance must be coming from Brenda’s class. Brenda, in her retirement, will be devoting her time to writing new work and continuing to share those “soft, wise, lyric footsteps” with fellow writers, with her adorable dog Barnaby by her side. Find more about Brenda and what she’s dreaming up next here: https://brendamillerwriter.com/