Eric Gardner

Eric Gardner earned a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU) and specializes in teaching writing to first-year college students.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Kent State University’s honors program, Gardner’s undergraduate studies culminated in his senior honors thesis project, “The Burden of L.A.W.,” a novella written under the mentorship of writer and faculty member Henry Van Dyke.

After Kent State, Gardner developed an interest in expository writing and in the teaching of writing when he entered the master’s program in English at Ohio University, serving as a teaching assistant teaching both first-year writing courses and junior-level expository writing courses.

At SIU, Gardner’s work culminated in his dissertation, “Toward Ethnographic Reflexivity…,” a study of how first-time teachers of composition theorize their pedagogy.

Prior to teaching writing at Baldwin Wallace University, Gardner taught writing in various contexts at Ohio University, The University of Akron, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, The University of Michigan–Flint and Cleveland State University, where he served as director of first-year writing from 2003 to 2007.

Gardner has published writing in “The Cleveland Plain Dealer” and “The Victorian Newsletter.”