CUNY Writing Fellows - Jeremy Rayner

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the age of eighteen I left Hawaii to study at the University of California at Berkeley, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, before moving to New York to pursue a PhD in the Anthropology department of the CUNY Graduate Center. During the course of my studies as a PhD student I taught for four years in the Anthropology department at Hunter College, an experience which has greatly informed my current approaches to integrating writing into the curriculum. In addition to working as a Writing Fellow with the Writing across the Curriculum Program at Queens College, I am currently writing my dissertation, which is based on two years of ethnographic field research on social movements in contemporary Costa Rica.

I am convinced that writing is an essential part of intellectual and personal growth that should be the core of the educational process, and that fostering communicative competence through the written word is a vital part of a university’s commitment to fostering a vibrant public sphere. In my own academic work I have employed a broad range of different kinds of writing, from margin notes to field notes, from open ended exploratory writings to academic papers and presentations. My own experience with writing and its role in my educational and professional life has convinced me that it is important to encourage students to become comfortable with a diversity of different kinds of writing practices. I am excited for the opportunity provided by the WAC program to work with students and faculty to encourage a more profound integration of writing into the Queens College classroom.