Rate My Professor Matthew Dowell

Matthew Dowell, PhD, is an Associate Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing at Towson University, where he has served since 2016. He primarily teaches the department's first-year writing course, ENGL 102, and leads ENGL 102 instructors in a process of reflecting on and revising the curriculum and classroom practices as needed. Previously, Dowell held the position of Director of Writing at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he directed writing initiatives related to the first-year writing program, the Core curriculum, and the writing center. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition and an M.A. in English from the University of Louisville, a B.A. in English from the University of Louisville, and a B.A. in Political Science and English from the University of Dayton. Dowell has maintained a longstanding fascination with how writing functions, its purposes, and the processes by which it is created, with interests extending to writing pedagogy, including what is taught, how it is taught, and the goals of such instruction.

Dowell's research primarily focuses on feedback to student writing, influenced by his experiences as a writing tutor, college journalist, and editor, as well as advice from a mentor to study mundane yet persistent issues. He examines the production, reception, and circulation of such feedback in writing classrooms and its interplay with local contexts and ideologies. Planned future work will investigate how students, student writing, and teacher feedback move between classroom and writing center spaces. In earlier scholarship, Dowell studied newspaper rhetoric concerning slave revolts in relation to the Haitian Revolution and its recounting in historical footnotes. He co-authored the chapter "Purposeful Access: Reinventing Supersystems through Rhetorical Action" with Bre Garrett in the book Systems Shift, published by the WAC Clearinghouse. Dowell has presented at conferences including the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the Thomas R. Watson Conference. In 2023, he participated as a panelist in the AccessADVANCE webinar "Disability Inclusion in the Ongoing Pandemic," addressing impacts on the disability community and inclusion strategies.