Alumni Profiles
LeTriece Calhoun
Dr. LeTriece Calhoun is a visiting lecturer and alum of Pitt's PhD program in Composition. She is a fantastical writer, engaging lecturer, activist, and scholar. LeTriece’s dissertation is a multimodal exploration of her great-grandmother’s daily writing.
LeTriece came to Pitt after studying English at the University of North Carolina Willmington. In her search for potential schools to complete for Ph.D., she found that Pitt offered many benefits, including competitive pay for graduate students, and had an atmosphere where she felt welcomed to experiment with her work. “Pitt has one of the best pay rates for graduate students which was a really big factor, but I also liked the openness of the department when I had my interviews and general meetings,” LeTriece said. “I was like, ‘I just want to play with my work,’ and everyone I met here was like, ‘Yes! Exactly! Let’s do it.’ So that's what drew me here.”
As a visiting lecturer, LeTriece is teaching a course about the popular TV show, Survivor, and working on an independent project about the series. “I’m working on a big Survivor project, going through and making notes about diversity and gender and queerness and all the messed up things they like to say,” LeTriece said. In addition, she is also working on a fictional novel about witches, conjuring, and finding your own way, inspired by her love for all things fantasy. “I think a lot of my favorite scholars delve into fictional and non-fictional writing so I take inspiration from them,” LeTriece said. “But I like science fiction and fantasy and that's really what spurs my academic writing.”
Aside from writing, LeTriece is working on a side project centered around what she calls “Destructive Reclamation.” In antique stores all over the Pittsburgh area, there are items of racist memorabilia littering the shelves. LeTriece documents the location of these items with a photo and, after acquiring the funds to purchase them, returns to the store, purchases the memorabilia, and films herself smashing it. “I do it to save these things so that people who don’t know or respect the history or know where they came from don’t get them,” LeTriece said. “And so by removing them, you don't have a chance anymore.”
During her time in Pittsburgh, LeTriece has acquired an impressive list of favorite spots. She recommends The Abby in Lawrenceville or the Squirrel Hill Cafe for writers looking to sit down with their work, relax with a book, or have a drink. LeTriece also enjoys checking out different coffee shops, visiting museums, or just exploring. “I love going to Phipps, which is one of the best things about having our Pitt card,” LeTriece said. “But one thing I really like about Pittsburgh, aside from the events we have, is just walking through the streets and seeing people. That’s one of my favorite things to do.”
Dan Libertz
Dr. Daniel Libertz, another PhD in Composition alum, is currently serving as a third-year assistant professor of English and assistant director of the writing program at CUNY Baruch. Dan's dissertation and current research focus is a unique crossover between quantitative data and writing, reminding us of the vast possibility for specialization within the PhD program at Pitt.
Dan majored in English and secondary education during his undergraduate degree at the College of New Jersey. After school, he worked an industry job for a while before taking a master’s course in composition and rhetoric, a field he didn’t entirely know existed. When looking for schools to pursue composition further, Dan found that Pitt’s program, compared to other universities with similar programs, stood out for its teaching-focused curriculum. “When I was applying, what stood out to me was that [Pitt] really prioritized pedagogy. It was front and center as a concern in the coursework and in the sorts of projects students did in their dissertations,” Dan said. “And even though a lot of my research isn't strictly pedagogical, there was a pedagogical component to it that was always really important to me. I liked teaching and tutoring, and I wanted to continue that work.”
Dan’s dissertation and current research explore how people write and convey information with numbers. “I was interested in the malleability and rhetorical decision-making in how the quantitative portions of writing are communicated,” Dan said. “I always thought it was interesting how you have all these choices you can make without destroying the meaning of writing and how you can communicate in different ways when you want to grab someone's attention.”
At Pitt, Dan became involved with the faculty and graduate student unions, which helped expose him to the language and procedure of organizing while introducing him to other graduate students. “One of the really great things happening at Pitt was the union organizing for graduate students, which I was a part of. It was really beneficial for me to speak to other graduate students in all different disciplines,” Dan said. “In my job now, I understand how organizing works for a union, voting, contracts, and all this language. I probably wouldn’t have been as prepared at CUNY if I hadn’t gone to a place that was so active in union organization for faculty and graduate students."
Living in Pittsburgh pleasantly surprised Dan and his wife, who were looking for a place reasonably close to family, to continue their education and start a family. Aside from being an urban environment, Pittsburgh offered many perks that made it hard for the couple to leave after the program had finished. “Pittsburgh’s a great town. We didn’t know much about it, but there were other programs I got into where I just thought, ‘Man, I just don’t know if I would want to live there for five years,’” Dan said. “We loved Pittsburgh way more than we thought we would. It’s big enough to have city activities, like museums and parks, but it’s very walkable, and the public transit is good. It’s not overwhelming, but it’s reasonably accessible to do a lot of things that in bigger cities it may not be as easy to do.”
Melissa Yang
Dr. Melissa Yang is an alum of the PhD in Composition and the Writing Center Director at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, where she teaches courses in the Writing Program on a range of topics from environmental composition to professional writing. Her dissertation delves into the intertwined cultural histories connecting birds to words.
Melissa came to Pitt after studying English and Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College. Pitt stood out for its flexible program, offering the opportunity to write both creatively and critically. “Pitt’s English department had professors doing exciting scholarly and artistic work, and bridging the gap between these approaches,” Melissa said. “The open-ended set of requirements for the PhD in the Composition track allowed me to pursue a range of interests.”
Right now, Melissa is working on turning her dissertation into a book. Melissa had always been fascinated by birds and first explored the topic in her writing while still in undergrad but continued to pursue these interests for her dissertation once she began taking classes at Pitt. “My passion for exploring weird histories, local knowledge, and the natural world led me down an environmental humanities path for my dissertation,” Melissa said. “The most influential [class] was “Materialities of Writing” with Annette Vee, where I wrote my first paper on pigeons and foundationally shaped the direction of my dissertation.”
Melissa felt the PhD program at Pitt prepared her for her career in various ways, one of them being with her work as director of the Emory Writing Center. “Working in the Writing Center helped prepare me to become a Writing Center Director,” Melissa said. “The way Pitt English involves graduate students in the hiring process for faculty, and actually gave us a voice, profoundly informed and impacted my approach to the job market as an applicant, and as someone who now does a lot of hiring committee work at Emory.”
Teacher training is an integral part of Pitt’s PhD in Composition. Melissa speaks highly of this program, highlighting how she grew as a result of the training and still uses the skills she learned at Pitt in her work today. “I appreciated the multifaceted opportunities Pitt provided us in teacher training… I had a great experience being observed by my CEAT mentor Molly Bain, who gifted me with detailed and personalized insights that improved my teaching,” Melissa said. “I took a wonderful pedagogy practicum team-taught by Cory Holding and Angie Cruz, where we were given a memorable menu of creative activity options, but also workshopped practical documents, such as teaching philosophy statements, that I still use today.”
Alumni interviews and profiles were written by Grace Hemcher, Composition Program undergraduate intern, Spring 2023.