Rate My Professor Chris McCracken

Christopher McCracken is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he focuses on professional and technical writing. His research interests encompass rhetoric of science, writing in the disciplines, genre studies, and professional and technical writing. McCracken earned his Ph.D. from Kent State University in 2015, with a dissertation entitled "Mess Management in Microbial Ecology: Rhetorical Processes of Disciplinary Integration." He previously received his M.A. in 2011 and B.A. in 2009 from Sam Houston State University. Since joining the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, he has taught a range of courses including ENG 110 College Writing I, ENG 307 Writing for Management, PR, and the Professions, ENG 308 Technical Writing, ENG 309 Writing in the Sciences, ENG 311 Critical Theory, ENG 314 Grant Writing, ENG 335 Introduction to Professional & Technical Writing, ENG 452 Practicum in Professional & Technical Writing, and ENG 497 Rhetoric, Publics, and Sciences. He serves as Writing Programs Coordinator at the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning (CATL), where he also acts as Writing Fellow, supporting faculty in developing writing-intensive courses and reviewing Writing Emphasis certifications through the Writing Programs Advisory Board.

McCracken's scholarly contributions include co-authoring "The Minor is Major: An Adhocratic, Relationship-Based View of TPC Curriculum and Curriculum Revision" with Marie Moeller and Lindsay Steiner, published in Programmatic Perspectives 11.2 (2021). He authored "Ecology Emerges: A Disciplinary Social Drama" in POROI 10.2 (2014) and reviewed Christa Teston's Bodies in Flux: Scientific Methods for Negotiating Medical Uncertainty in Technical Communication Quarterly 27.2 (2018). More recently, he collaborated with Bryan Kopp, Lindsay Steiner, and Louise Zamparutti on "Rhetorical Prompt Engineering," featured in TextGenEd: Continuing Experiments in Teaching with Text Generation Technologies (January 9, 2024), and "Student and Instructor Perceptions and Uses of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education," published in Teaching of Psychology (November 25, 2024). McCracken co-organizes the annual Artificial Intelligence Summit at UW-La Crosse and contributes to programmatic developments in technical and professional communication. He was promoted to Associate Professor in the English Department.