New to campus this year, Dr. Travis Maynard is a PWR professor bringing much to our English Department. Dr. Maynard hails from a small town in Kentucky but spent the past eight years at Florida State University getting his Masters and Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition. Being at Florida State was more than just getting his degrees, however, as Dr. Maynard also received hands-on experience with students. “While getting my degrees, I gained eight years of teaching experience in both First-Year classes and the Editing, Writing, and Media major program,” he said.
Now, Dr. Maynard is getting the opportunity to apply all that he has learned and observed in his eight years of study at FSU to our PWR program in the English department, with an emphasis on alumni studies. During his time at FSU, Dr. Maynard focused on Editing, Writing, and Media major alumni and examined “their professional trajectories following graduation, their current writing practices and processes, and their perceptions of how the major prepared them for their lives after graduation.” Dr. Maynard’s study found that 94% of their alumni found employment following graduation and 70% of those alumni write for a minimum of 10 hours per week at their jobs; this demonstrates the usefulness of their education in securing employment.
At Elon, Dr. Maynard hopes to continue his research by examining our English department alumni using the same three criteria mentioned above. In regards to his research, Dr. Maynard said, “I’d like to focus on developing a network of PWR alumni that can not only serve as a resource for current students but offer opportunities for data collection regarding the impact and influence of the PWR major on alumni lives.”
When not pursuing alumni research, Dr. Maynard is teaching a variety of PWR and English courses. Currently, he is teaching PWR 217 and ENG 110. Thus far Dr. Maynard has quite enjoyed his time with Elon students and has found that “the one positive of pandemic teaching has been breaking classes down into smaller groups and really feeling like I’m getting to know my students pretty well.” As a result of hybridized learning, Dr. Maynard has adapted by scaling down his coursework and also by splitting his classes into smaller groups. With smaller groups of students, Dr. Maynard is not only getting to know them better but also getting to watch their work evolve more closely. During his classes’ workshops, he is consistently amazed by the work his students are doing with InDesign and Illustrator. “I think those days have been very generative for students and they have been incredibly energizing for me as a professor,” he said.
If you are interested in studying under him, he is also teaching PWR 211 Publishing and Editing I in the Winter 2021, as well as PWR 215 Professional Writing and Rhetoric, which introduces students to the realm of professional writing through the lens of rhetoric, during the Spring 2021 term. His Winter term course is something he is extremely excited to announce. In this course, “We are going to work together to develop an issue of a satirical newspaper focusing on the Elon campus community, from conception to publication,” he said.
If you are curious to get to know Dr. Maynard better, peruses some of his favorite works of all time! Before you do, Dr. Maynard does have one request. He says “My tastes usually run a little bit more low-brow, so hopefully, my colleagues won’t judge me too harshly!” They are as follows:
- “Enjoy Yourself” by The Specials
- London Calling by The Clash
- The play Terminator the Second