Kirsti K. Cole

• 2023–present
  Professor of English; Co-Director, Campus Writing & Speaking Program

  North Carolina State University · Raleigh, NC

  • Lead faculty development in writing-enriched curricula, and teach graduate courses in rhetoric, composition theory, multimodal composition, and writing program administration
  • Co-direct signature programs including the Communication Teaching Certificate (C2TC), WOLF (Written and Oral Literacy Facilitation), and the Wolfpack Writes 14-Day Challenge
  • CWSP received the 2024 AWAC Exemplary WAC Program Award
• 2018–2023
  Professor of English

  Minnesota State University (Assistant Professor 2008, Associate Professor 2013)

  • Graduate and undergraduate teaching in rhetoric, composition theory, literary theory, and gender studies
  • Director, Writing Across the Curriculum (2013–2016): designed cross-campus writing assessment, established the WAC Committee, and facilitated professional development

• 2021
  Graduate Certificate, Medical Writing and Editing

  University of Chicago
• 2008
  Ph.D. in English (Rhetoric, Composition, and Literature)

  Arizona State University
• 2008
  Graduate Certificate, Gender and Women’s Studies

  Arizona State University
• 2001
  B.A. in English, magna cum laude

  University of Montana, Missoula

• Institutional Literacy & Writing Program Studies
• Feminist & Critical Rhetorical Theory
• Digital & Multimodal Rhetorics
• Ethical AI Integration
• Academic Labor & Governance
• Health & Medical Humanities
• Communication of Science & Medicine

Books

• Under review
  Cole, Kirsti. The Glitch Curriculum: How Universities Read Themselves in the AI Moment. Under consideration with Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Under review
  Bivens, Kristin, and Kirsti Cole, Eds. Bad Ideas about Scientific Writing. Under consideration with WAC Clearinghouse.
• 2023
  Cole, Kirsti, Holly Hassel, and Joanne Giordano. A Faculty Guidebook for Effective Shared Governance and Service in Higher Education. Routledge.

Edited Collections

• 2026
  Cole, Kirsti, and Sarah Henderson Lee, Eds. Reimagining Graduate Education in Writing Studies: Sustainable, Equitable, and Inclusive Approaches. Routledge.
• 2023
  Cole, Kirsti, and Valerie Renegar, Eds. Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology. Routledge.
• 2021
  Cole, Kirsti, and Holly Hassel, Eds. Transformations: Change Work Across Writing Programs, Pedagogies, and Practices. Utah State University Press.
• 2019
  Cole, Kirsti, and Holly Hassel, Eds. Academic Labor Beyond the Classroom: Working for Our Values. Routledge.
• 2017
  Cole, Kirsti, and Holly Hassel, Eds. Surviving Sexism in Academia: Strategies for Feminist Leadership. Routledge.
• 2014
  Cole, Kirsti, Ed. Feminist Challenges or Feminist Rhetorics?: Locations, Scholarship, and Discourse. Cambridge Scholars Press.

Guest-Edited Special Issues

• Forthcoming
  Oct. 2026
  Cole, Kirsti, and Holly Hassel, Guest Eds. “When Words Become Work.” Composition Studies, Special Digital Issue.
• Feb. 2026
  Anson, Chris, and Kirsti Cole, Guest Eds. “Empirical Studies of Writing and Generative AI.” Journal of Writing Research, Special Issue 17.3. View issue

Refereed Articles (Selected)

• Under review
  Cole, Kirsti. “AI Literacy Is Not One Thing: Conceptual, Structural, and Operative Levels for Higher Education Governance.” Pedagogies.
• Forthcoming
  Cole, Kirsti, and Chris Anson. “The Labor of Strategic Translation.” College Composition and Communication.
• Forthcoming
  Cole, Kirsti, Sarah Felber, Holly Hassel, et al. “Strategic Friction: Writing and Literacy Programs and the Acceleration Imperative.” WPA Journal.
• Forthcoming
  Fall 2026
  Cole, Kirsti, and Valerie R. Renegar. “Discursive Archetypes: Kamala Harris and Repositioning Stepmotherhood.” Peitho.
• Aug. 2026
  Cole, Kirsti. “Cyborg Composing and Posthuman Research Methods.” TextGenEd Continuing Experiments.
• 2026
  Schwartzman, Roy, and Kirsti Cole. “A Modest Futurist Manifesto for Reimagining Communication Centers in a Critical AI Landscape.” Communication Center Journal 11(1).
• Aug. 2025
  Cole, Kirsti, Biven Alexander, Wil Carr, Brody McCurdy, and Bethany Van Scooter. “Reflective Multimodal Feedback Practices in Human and AI Writing Contexts.” TextGenEd Continuing Experiments.
• 2019
  Renegar, Valerie R., and Kirsti Cole. “‘Evil is Part of the Territory’: Inventing the Stepmother in Self-Help Books.” Women’s Studies in Communication.
• 2019
  Bivens, Kristin, Kirsti Cole, and Leah Hellig. “The Activist Syllabus as Technical Communication.” Technical Communication Quarterly.
• 2015
  Cole, Kirsti. “‘It’s Like She’s Eager to be Verbally Abused:’ Twitter, Trolls, and (En)gendering Disciplinary Rhetoric.” Feminist Media Studies 15.2.
• 2007
  Webb, Patricia, Kirsti Cole, and Thomas Skeen. “Feminist Social Projects: Building Bridges between Communities and Universities.” College English 69.3.

Refereed Book Chapters (Selected)

• Forthcoming
  Spring 2027
  Cole, Kirsti. “Writing as Social Action: ENG 422 as a Course Structured by AI Literacy.” In Teaching AI. EdTech Books.
• Forthcoming
  Fall 2026
  Cole, Kirsti, and Bethany Van Scooter. “Navigating Visibility Matrices: Institutional Literacy and Contingent Labor in Writing Programs.” In Precarious Pedagogies. University of Colorado Press.
• Forthcoming
  Fall 2026
  Cole, Kirsti, and Bethany Van Scooter. “Running on Coffee, Guilt, and Calendar Reminders: Neurodivergent Academic Motherhood Across Career Stages.” In Narratives of Persistence and Survival. Lexington Books.
• May 2026
  Anson, Chris, and Kirsti Cole. “Writing With AI Requires Human Rhetorical Agency.” In Bad Ideas about AI and Writing. WAC Clearinghouse. Read online
• 2026
  Cole, Kirsti, and Sarah Henderson Lee. “Creating Collaborative Conditions.” In Reimagining Graduate Education in Writing Studies. Routledge.
• 2024
  Cole and Wagner. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Digital Rhetoric, Misinformation, and Trust.” In Trust under Threat. Waxmann Verlag GmbH.
• 2023
  Moreland, Lee, and Cole. “(E)merging Expertise: Multivocal, Multimodal Preparation of Graduate Teaching Assistants.” In Professionalizing Multimodal Composition. Utah State University Press.
• 2020
  Bivens, Cole, and Koerber. “Activism by Accuracy: Women’s Health and Hormonal Birth Control.” In Women’s Health Advocacy. Routledge.

Invited Keynotes and Workshops

• Sept. 2026
  Is it OK to use AI for this? Invited Keynote, Student Media Training Day 2026, NC State University.
• May 2026
  Writing in the Machine’s Shadow: Ethics and equity in agentic AI. Invited Presentation, Ethics and Agentic AI Symposium at NC State. Raleigh, NC.
• Feb. 2026
  Building Sustainable WEC Programs: Institutional Ethnography as Strategic Tool. Invited Keynote (with Schwartzman), Write@UGA Conference. Athens, GA.
• Feb. 2026
  Practical Tools to Cultivate Writing in Your Context. Invited Workshop (with Schwartzman), Write@UGA Conference. Athens, GA.
• June 2025
  Writing with, not for, AI. Invited Workshop, IWCA Summer Institute, UDLAP. Cholula, Mexico.
• Feb. 2025
  AI, Ethics, Industry, and Academia (with Boinodiris and Smith). Grand Challenges Scholars Program Annual Meeting, NC State.
• 2014
  “Where Do We Go From Here? Two Decades of the Feminist Workshop.” Keynote, CCCC Feminist Workshop. Indianapolis, IN.
• 2011
  “20 Years of Feminist Work(shop).” Keynote, CCCC Feminist Workshop. Atlanta, GA.

Selected Conference Presentations

• Oct. 2026
  The Unmediated Writer: What Writing Programs Do When Cognition Is Distributed. Carolinas WPA 19th Fall Retreat. Wildacres, NC. Session companion
• July 2026
  The Burkean Skeleton Key: Strategic Canonicity in Precarious Times (with Renegar). Rhetoric in a Precarious World. Ghent, Belgium.
• June 2026
  Building AI-Informed Communication Pathways: A Practical Framework for Scaffolded Instruction from First-Year to Capstone (with Qaqish and Allard). ASEE. Charlotte, NC.
• Feb. 2026
  The Weight of Stigma (with Renegar). WSCA Convention. San Diego, CA.
• July 2025
  Writing, Research, and Resilience (with Lee, Moreland, and Turner). IWAC Conference. Fort Collins, CO.
• July 2025
  Revitalizing Writing Enriched Curriculum (with Schwartzman). IWAC Conference. Fort Collins, CO.
• Apr. 2025
  Where Policy Meets Position (with Hassel). CCCC. Baltimore, MD.
• Mar. 2025
  Writing in the Age of AI. NC State University Research Symposium.
• Oct. 2024
  Digital Collaboration: Modeling Writing and Editing Practices through Horizontal Mentoring (with Renegar and Sowards). NKRF9. Copenhagen, Denmark.
• June 2024
  Out with the Old: Reconstructing Cognitive Models of Writing when AI Intervenes (with Anson). ways2write/EARLI SIG Writing. Paris, France.

Awarded

• 2026
  Engineering Information Foundation (EiF), VANTAGE Awarded Aug. 2026

  Enhancing Communication in Engineering Education · Co-PI with Alice Cheng and Roy Schwartzman · $24,999
• 2026
  Academic Innovation Accelerator Program

  CHASS Curriculum Accelerator: Powering Human-Focused AI · Co-PI with James Mulholland and Huiling Ding · NC State University · $20,000
• 2026
  OASIS Teaching Innovation Grant

  NC State University · $2,400
• 2024
  CHASS Wellness Grant

  NC State University · $3,000
• 2020, 2012
  Faculty Research Grant

  Minnesota State University · $5,000
• 2015
  Nadine B. Andreas Scholar Award

  Minnesota State University · $9,000
• 2013–2015
  Arts and Humanities Research Grant

  Minnesota State University · $2,500 per year

Pending

• 2026
  National Humanities Center Residential Fellowship, AY 2027–28, to support The Glitch Curriculum. Submitted.
• Apr. 2026
  NC State Foundation Grant: “The AI Writing Studio” (with Van Scooter, co-PI). $25,000. Submitted.

In Development

• 2026
  NSF Professional Formation of Engineers (PFE), Track 1 planning grant: Validating and Scaling AI-Informed Communication Pedagogy (with Allard and Qaqish). $75,000.
• 2026
  DELTA Exploratory Grant: AI Ethics in Culturally Responsive STEM Literacy (with Schwartzman, Berube, and Watson).

Service to the Profession

• 2025–present
  Elected Member, MLA AI and Research Working Group
• 2025
  Co-Author, AWAC Statement on AI Writing Tools in WAC Settings
• Ongoing
  External Tenure and Promotion Reviews, seven institutions
• June–Sept. 2025
  Consulting Workshops, IsolereBio Workplace Communication Series, five workshops
• 2016–present
  Member, Editorial and Reviews Board, Peitho
• 2010–present
  Member, Reviews Board, Composition Studies
• 2012–present
  Member, Editorial Board, Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning and Community-Based Research
• 2011
  Chair, International Conference on Feminisms and Rhetorics, Mankato, MN

Service to the University

• 2025–present
  ISI Faculty Workshop Development: writing, AI integration, and disciplinary communication
• 2024–2026
  Evaluation of Teaching Committee, NC State University
• Aug. 2025
  Workshop Facilitator, “AI Tools to Enhance Classroom Practices,” Engineering New Faculty Orientation
• 2018–2022
  Arts and Humanities Unit Representative, IFO, Minnesota State University
• 2015–2017
  President, President’s Commission on the Status of Women, Minnesota State University

Service to the Department

• AY 2026–27
  Convener, Research, Tenure & Promotion Committee, NC State English Department
• AY 2025–26
  PTR Committee Chair, NC State English Department
• Ongoing
  CRDM Program Committee Member
• Nov. 2024
  Faculty Mentors’ Retreat Co-Organizer

• Current
  Dissertation Director for two doctoral candidates, NC State University
• Fall 2026
  Directed independent study, ENG 636, cultural rhetorics reading group (three MA students)
• Fall 2026
  Directed independent study, CRD 810, AI literacy (one doctoral student)

• 2024
  AWAC Exemplary Enduring WAC Program, Campus Writing & Speaking Program, NC State University
• 2018
  Nominee, Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award, Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition
• 2013–2015
  Arts and Humanities Research Grant Recipient, Minnesota State University

References available upon request.