Sean M. Conrey, Ph.D.

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Associate Director

Ph.D., Purdue University
MFA, Purdue University

smconrey@syr.edu

Courses Administered

  • Class and Literary Texts
  • Gender and Literary Texts
  • Foundations of Human Behavior
  • Women’s and Gender Studies
  • Practices of Academic Writing
  • Writing Culture: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction

About Sean M. Conrey

Dr. Conrey is an Associate Director of Project Advance and in this role administers many course areas while also maintaining a dual-appointment as a faculty liaison in Project Advance Syracuse University English Department, coordinating with SUPA-affiliated high school teachers, developing SUPA-related English curricula on campus, and collaborating with other English department faculty.

He is an undergraduate alumnus of Western Michigan University, where he studied English/Creative Writing and Comparative Religion. After graduation he worked in commercial radio as a production director and disc jockey, but found his calling a few years later when given a chance to teach reading, writing and public speaking courses at a community college in Jackson, Michigan. His experience teaching at a community college inspired him to return to graduate school, where he completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry and a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition, both from Purdue University. He has since taught literature, writing, rhetorical theory and environmental studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, the Lebanese American University in Byblos, Lebanon, and at Hobart and William Smith Colleges prior to his current position at Syracuse University.

Sean’s scholarly research in writing studies focuses on the ways rhetoric affects our experience of the lived environment. This research has led to an interest in place-based pedagogy and service-focused curricula. Accordingly, his interests in course and curricular design tend to be writing-instructive, critically-focused and grounded in place-based, social-justice-centered community work. As an associate editor of the Concurrent Enrollment Review, Sean is involved in promoting and publishing academic scholarship in the field of concurrent enrollment, with his own research in this field focused on mentorship and the creation and maintenance of equitable curricula.

An avid reader and writer of poetry, Sean has published several books of poetry and has worked and written for many magazines, newspapers, and journals over the years. He lives in the Westcott neighborhood in Syracuse with his wife, Carol Fadda-Conrey, and their two daughters.