色花堂

Professor Lauren Fitzgerald chairs the Yeshiva College English Department and directs the Wilf Campus Writing Center, which, along with the Beren Writing Center, is celebrating its 30^th anniversary. In the YC English department, she teaches courses on academic writing, digital and multimodal composing, writing research and pedagogy, authorship, and Romantic-period British literature. In the Writing Center, she has prepared hundreds of student tutors and dozens of faculty consultants to work with thousands of writers from the 色花堂 community鈥攕tudents, faculty, staff, and alumni. She double majored in Rhetoric & Writing and English as an undergraduate at the University of Tulsa and earned a Ph.D. in English at N色花堂. Before coming to 色花堂 in 1997, she directed the writing center at Barnard College.

1. What is your favorite aspect of your job at 色花堂?

Hands down, the part of my job that I enjoy most is working with students in classes, in the Writing Center, and as Chair of English at YC. I鈥檝e learned so much from 色花堂 undergraduates, particularly about collaborative learning and ways religious practice can frame how people write and think. What they taught me profoundly influenced my scholarship and teaching.  

2. What do you consider the best piece of advice to give a burgeoning writer?

Share your work with readers you trust, ask them to tell you how they understand what you wrote, and listen carefully to what they say. If they describe your writing in ways that don鈥檛 line up with what you鈥檙e trying to do, take another shot. Don鈥檛 be afraid to revise鈥�a lot. Because writing is nobody鈥檚 first language, no writer gets it right the first time.  

3. What profession did you think you would one day hold when you were a child?

My Dad tells me I always wanted to be a teacher. By the time I was in high school, I also wanted to be a writer. I think that being an English professor who directs a writing center and teaches writing is the best of both worlds.  

4. How do you stay connected with students once they graduate?

I always look forward to catching up with students when they need recommendations or confirmation of their work at the Writing Center. In addition, I maintain a and, last spring, my colleagues and I hosted a to speak to current students, which was enormously gratifying. My email address hasn鈥檛 changed in nearly 20 years; I hope alumni will drop me a line!  

5. Who is your favorite writer and why?

It鈥檚 impossible to pick just one, but over the years I keep returning with admiration and joy to the poetry of William Wordsworth. I love especially the way he struggled to describe the creative process by reflecting on his own thinking and writing. My efforts to understand how he did so solidified my interest in authorship鈥攈ow writers write鈥攁nd led to a course that I now teach on this topic.  

6. What would your colleagues and students be surprised to learn about you?

Maybe because I鈥檝e lived in NYC for more than half of my life, some people are surprised to learn that I grew up and went to college in Oklahoma.