First-Generation Dragons

Professor Kylie Skeel is currently a PhD Student at Bowling Green State University where she is studying rhetoric and writing. Her research interests include first-generation college students, feminist rhetoric, and first-year writing studies. Professor Skeel serves as the co-founder and advisor for First-Generation Dragons, the on-campus student organization, and she is also a member of the National Council of Teachers of English. Professor Skeel was also a panelist speaker in 2021 for the national Conference on College Composition and Communication where she presented her research on pedagogies to utilize in the first-year writing classrooms for first-generation college students. She will also be presenting her work at CCCC again in March of 2022; her presentation is called Celebrating Black Women through Research, Rhetoric, and Writing. She will be educating her audience on the importance of including Black women’s voices in higher education and the lasting impacts representation in the writing classroom has on retention in higher education. Lastly, Professor Skeel is scheduled to defend her dissertation in May of 2023. Her project will research how Black women who are the first in their families to go to college function in the writing classroom and how their overall collegiate experiences differ from that of traditional students.