Rate My Professor Tom Deans

Tom Deans is Professor of English and Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Connecticut in the Literature faculty. He joined UConn in 2005 as Associate Professor to direct the Writing Center, support writing across the disciplines, teach undergraduate and graduate courses, and pursue research interests in writing studies, writing across and beyond the curriculum, writing centers, prose style, service-learning, and representations of writers in literary and sacred texts. Promoted to full Professor in 2015, his prior appointments include Assistant and Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition and Nancy & Buster Alvord Director of College Writing at Haverford College (2002-2005), and Assistant Professor of English at Kansas State University (1998-2002). Deans earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1998, M.A. in English from Georgetown University in 1992, and A.B. in English from Georgetown University in 1989. He teaches undergraduate courses in first-year writing, prose style, literature, and writing for community organizations, as well as graduate seminars in composition theory and writing across the curriculum.

Deans has published key works including Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition (2000), Writing and Community Action: A Service-Learning Rhetoric and Reader (2003), and the co-edited Writing and Community Engagement: A Critical Sourcebook (2010). He serves as series co-editor for the Oxford Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines, contributing to volumes on writing in biology, engineering, political science, sociology, nursing, anthropology, and music. His scholarly impact includes major honors such as the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Community Engaged Scholarship (2024), Fulbright U.S. Scholar to cultivate writing centers in Ugandan universities (2021-2022), Co-Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation grant for science writing and neurodiversity in STEM fields (2021-2024, $499,749), Interim Aetna Endowed Chair of Writing (2015-2016), Provost’s Award for Excellence in Public Engagement (2012), and CCCC Writing Program Certificate of Excellence (2011). Through his work, Deans emphasizes writing as a mode of social action, fostering community-engaged scholarship and innovative writing support.