A Professor of English, Col. Michelle Iten teaches courses in civic discourse; the history and theory of rhetoric; language and style; rhetoric and democracy; writing for military officers; and writing for business. She earned her B.A. in English / Writing and M.A. in English / Rhetoric from St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where she served as assistant director of the writing center and later as a full-time instructor teaching courses in research writing, creative nonfiction, business writing, and rhetorical theory. After career experience in corporate communications, public relations, and magazine publishing, she earned her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Texas Christian University, where she held multiple research and teaching fellowships.

Col. Iten’s research areas are in rhetorical democracy and in the theory and teaching of written rhetorical argument. Ongoing research projects include the rhetorical nature of contemplative practices in democracy, democracy and the self, democratic time, and links between Kenneth Burke and John Dewey. Other research and teaching interests include propaganda theory and criticism, rhetorical approaches to political virtues, and emotional intelligence in everyday democratic interactions. An active member of the Rhetoric Society of Europe and the Rhetoric Society of America, she has published on social class in argument pedagogy, the rhetorical theorization of democracy, and contemplative practices as part of civic discourse pedagogy. Col. Iten is the author of an upcoming monograph, A Rhetoric for Expanding Democracy: Unleashing the Excess (Lexington Books: 2026).

Col. Iten is particularly committed to undergraduate education in rhetoric and advancing student writers’ abilities to develop democratic character, argue with rationality, and write with precision and power.

Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies