YSU Dean recognized as distinguished woman scholar by Purdue University
Kristine Blair, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Youngstown State University, is one of five Purdue University alumnae to be recognized as 2017 Distinguished Women Scholars for exceptional contributions to their fields and impressive leadership.
"We bookmark these amazing women’s lives from the time they graduated from Purdue to their current positions, but the space between is filled with so many accomplishments, said Patrice M. Buzzanell, chair and director of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. "These five 2017 Distinguished Women Scholars are not only known nationally and internationally for their accomplishments in their content areas of expertise, but also are recognized as effective teachers, outstanding administrators, and generous mentors. Their contributions and the ways they act as role models to all of us are nothing short of inspiring.”
The award ceremony was March 10 on the Purdue University Campus.
Blair earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in English from California State University, Sacramento, and a PhD in English Rhetoric from Purdue in 1994. She came to YSU in May 2016 from Bowling Green State University, where she had been professor and chair of English.
She was an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi before joining the English faculty at Bowling Green in 1996, rising to the rank of professor in 2006. She was chair of the English Department at Bowling Green from 2005 to 2014. Also at Bowling Green, she has served as acting director of the Rhetoric and Writing Doctoral Program, chair of the Faculty Senate, graduate coordinator in the English department, and associate director/faculty associate in the BGSU Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology.
She has presented dozens of workshops, forums and lectures, and has participated in extensive professional development and training activities, including times as a visiting scholar in Digital Media and Composition at Ohio State University in 2014-15. Blair’s research interests include gender and technology, computers and the teaching of writing, technology and faculty development, e-learning, online pedagogies, digital language and literacy, the politics of online communication, electronic portfolios, research methodologies and visual/media literacy.
Among her awards is the BGSU Faculty Senate Award for Leadership, BGSU Women of Distinction Award and the President’s Award for Collaborative Research with Graduate Students. She has authored three textbooks, edited two other books, and written dozens of articles, review essays, chapters and webtexts in peer-reviewed venues. She also is the editor of two journals: Computers and Composition and its online companion journal, Computers and Composition Online.