Education

1998 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas

PhD in English. Dissertation: Dos Passos and the Discourse of Community: Revolution and the American Family, 1900-1929. Director: Charles H. Adams. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1999. 9920313. Comprehensive exams completed in American Literature 1865-1990, the novel, and Henry James.

1989 Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

MA in English

1987 Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Clarion, Pennsylvania

BA in English, summa cum laude

1985 Penn State University, Shenango Campus, Sharon, Pennsylvania

AA in Letters, Arts, and Sciences, with distinction

Employment

2008-2014 Retired. Instructional Technologist, Academic Excellence Center, Cuyahoga Community College, Eastern Campus. Support faculty integration of technology in teaching and learning, explore emerging technologies, support faculty course design and best practices, manage Academic Excellence Center at Eastern Campus. Work in this position includes the following:

  • Facilitating the integration of technology and teaching through workshops and consultations on effective pedagogy
  • Exploring emerging technologies and conducting pilots with faculty
  • Working collaboratively with faculty development constituents to improve online learning through effective course design and use of technology. Facilitating online faculty Blackboard training.

2005-08 Director, Center for Instructional Technology, Mercyhurst College. Duties included teaching one English course per term.

2001-05 Assistant Professor of English (non-tenure), Mercyhurst College. Taught first-year composition and Western Classics.

2000-01 Lead E-Structor, Online Writing Lab, Smarthinking, Inc. Tutored writing online in asynchronous essay center and synchronous whiteboard environment. Trained and mentored e-structors.

Adjunct, Graduate, and Undergraduate Positions

2009-2012 Instructor of English (online), Cuyahoga Community College.

2001 (Spring) Instructor of English, Gannon University.

1999-2001 Instructor of English, Mercyhurst College.

1997-99 Instructor of English, Valdosta State University.

1995-97 Instructor of English, Sam Houston State University.

1995-97 Instructor of English, Blinn College.

1990-95 Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Arkansas.

1987-89 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Penn State University.

1984-85 Bibliographical Assistant, Penn State University, Shenango Campus. Assistant to John Bryant, English Department. Compiled bibliographies for and proofread Companion to Melville Studies (Westport: Greenwood, 1986).

Publications

“Faulkner’s Big Woods and the Historical Necessity of Revision.” Mississippi Quarterly 49 (1996): 475-95.

Examines historical context of period following the Brown v. Board of Education decision and possible effects of desegregation on Faulkner’s revising of material in Go Down, Moses for Big Woods, an ostensible gift book of hunting stories. Article is noted as “valuable” addition to Faulkner studies in 1996 American Literary Scholarship Faulkner chapter.

“Cross-Cultural Reading and Generic Transformations: The Chronotope of the Road in Erdrich’s Love Medicine.” American Literature 67 (1995): 777-92.

Uses Bakhtin’s chronotope to examine generic and cultural features of Erdrich’s novel as a picaresque, postmodern, and communal text.

“‘Dangerously Absent Dreamers’: Genealogy, History, and the Political Left in Vineland.” Pynchon Notes 30-31 (1992): 39-51.

Finds initial narrative of family masks the principal historical narrative of the political left in twentieth-century America.

Public Writing

Mostly Technology & Teaching. WordPress Blog. Web. 6 February 2014.  http://mostlytechnology.wordpress.com/

Barbara L. Pittman, PhD. Online Portfolio. WordPress Blog. Web. 6 February 2014. http://pittmanportfolio.wordpress.com/

Wandering with Grinn Pidgeon. Virtuals Worlds Blog. WordPress Blog. Web. 6 February 2014. http://grinnsworld.wordpress.com/

Presentations

Campus Presentation. “Is Second Life Still Good for Teaching Simulations?” Barbara L. Pittman and E. Scott Rhoten. Cuyahoga Community College Faculty Service Day. January 11, 2013.

Campus Presentation. “The Letters Project: Documenting and Preserving the Past with Mobile and Web-Based Technologies.” Barbara L. Pittman. Cuyahoga Community College Faculty Colloquium. January 8, 2013.

Campus Presentation. “Reaching Across the Divide: Hands-On Collaboration in an Online Writing Course.” Barbara L. Pittman. Cuyahoga Community College Faculty Colloquium. January 2011.

Campus Presentation. “The Adaptable Wiki: How Can I, You, We Use Wikis in Higher Education.” Barbara L. Pittman and Kevin Dranuski. Cuyahoga Community College Faculty Colloquium. January 2010.

Conference presentation: “A Team Approach to Multi-Campus Academic Excellence Centers.” Barbara L. Pittman, Lindsay English, Cynthia Potteiger, and William Fogarty. SEED 2009: Beyond Teaching and Technology: Growth and Change at Faculty Support Centers. University of Findlay. May7-8, 2009.

Poster presentation. “Building a Second Life on a Shoestring.” CIT 2008: Conference on Instructional Technologies. SUNY Genesee Community College, Batavia, NY. 27-30 May 2008.

Faculty/Student presentation: “Researching American Labor Crises: Determining the Social Ethics of Work in America.” Barbara L. Pittman, Rebecca Hammer, Jennifer Helbig, Lindsay Peters, and Amy Truxal. Right, Wrong, and Grey: Ethical Boundaries for the 21st Century. Mercyhurst College Academic Celebration. March 28-31, 2004. Presented Web site built by writing students. https://sites.google.com/site/americanlaborcrises/

Faculty presentation: “Cognitive Flexibility, Case Studies, and Hypertext: Creating a Teaching Web Site.” Technology Buffet Faculty Presentation. Mercyhurst College, Erie, Pennsylvania. 5 September 2002. Presented course project design and implementation in faculty workshops. https://sites.google.com/site/approachestoreadingliterature/

Conference presentation: “Beyond the Writing Classroom: A Collaborative Annotated Bibliography in an Introductory Literature Course.” 4th Annual Teaching of Writing Colloquia. Kent State University Stark Campus, Canton, Ohio. 29 April 2000.

Public lecture: “The Hero in Literature: Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts.” Butterfield Trail Retirement Village Lecture Series, Fayetteville, Arkansas. April 1994.

Academic Recognition

Online Learning Consortium (formerly Sloan-C) Effective Practice. 2011. “Engaging Faculty in Teaching and Learning: Pedagogy Flyer Series.” Online Learning Consortium (formerly Sloan-C) Effective Practices. September 2011. http://onlinelearningconsortium.org/effective_practices/engaging-faculty-teaching- and-learning-pedagogy-fyer-series

Faculty Grant. 2001.  Faculty grant from the Education Division at Mercyhurst College through their Links to the Future Grant, a federally-funded grant to increase the use of technology in teaching. Grant awarded to infuse course syllabus with technology.

Award. 1993.  Ben Drew Kimpel Award for Outstanding Graduate Student, University of Arkansas.

Teaching and Research Interests

Visual rhetoric and digital visual literacy

Digital storytelling

Social media in education

Public writing: blogs and wikis

Asynchronous and collaborative learning; online learning

Virtual worlds

American literature, 1865-present; realism, modernism, postmodernism

Novel; narrative; working-class fiction; race, gender, and cultural studies

World literature in translation

Scholarly Editing