Dr. James Schirmer Visits BGSU

Dr. James Schirmer visited BGSU on Tuesday, September 24, 2019, to deliver two presentations discussing this year’s common read and his experiences teaching writing at the University of Michigan-Flint while the issues with Flint’s water were being uncovered. Schirmer’s presentations, “Reading and Writing Amidst Crisis” and “Seeking Our Own Level,” highlighted the importance of meaningful and timely writing experiences for students while also attending to student concerns for their learning.

Schirmer’s first-year writing course had originally been themed on food, but the developing news of the water crisis prompted Schirmer and his students to reconsider the framing of the course. Schirmer, a 2008 graduate of BGSU’s PhD program in Rhetoric and Writing, is an associate professor of English and the department chair at University of Michigan-Flint.