Rate My Professor Tiffany Kinney

Tiffany Kinney serves as Associate Professor of English and Department Head for Languages, Literature, and Mass Communication at Colorado Mesa University, a position she has held since 2017. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Writing Studies from the University of Utah in 2017, with a dissertation titled “Cultivating Legitimacy in a Religious Context: A Pan-historical Analysis of Mormon Feminism,” which served as the foundation for her book Legitimization of Mormon Feminist Rhetors: A Pan-Historical Analysis published by Lexington Books in 2020. Kinney received her MA in English, focusing on American Literature, from the University of Oregon in 2010, and her BA in English from Westminster College in 2008, graduating magna cum laude. Prior professional appointments include Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Utah from 2012 to 2017, where she taught science writing, advanced argumentation, and introductory and intermediate writing courses; English Language Arts Teacher with Teach for America at Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada, from 2010 to 2012; and Graduate Teaching Fellow at the University of Oregon from 2009 to 2010. At Colorado Mesa University, she teaches rhetoric and composition courses including Professional and Technical Writing, English Composition I and II, Science Writing, Composition Theory and Rhetorical History, Writing for Engineers, and Professional and Technical Writing.

Kinney's academic interests encompass marginalized rhetorics through examinations of local histories that challenge dominant structures and narratives, as well as interdisciplinary research on effective science writing pedagogy, including the development of digital curricula. Her key publications include the book chapter “Tracing the Conversation: 20th Century Mormon Feminist Thought” in Feminist Connections: Rhetorical Strategies from Suffragists to the Cyberfeminists (University of Alabama Press, 2020); “Cultivating Graduate Writing Groups as Communities of Practice: A Toolkit” co-authored with Sumiko Martinez and Julie Snyder-Yuly in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal 16.3 (2019); “Reevaluating Our Commitments: Intersectionality, Interdisciplinarity and the Future of Feminist Rhetoric” co-authored with Rachel Bloom et al. in Rhetorics Change/Rhetoric’s Change (Parlor Press, 2018); “Cinch for Instacurves: Exploring the Discursive Assemblage of Waist Trainers in New Media” in The Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society 6.2 (2016); and “Do You Have a Voice? Publication and Rhetorical Practices of One Feminist Newsletter” in Feminist Spaces 2.2 (2016). She has contributed book reviews to Peitho (2017) and Rhetorica (2017). Among her honors are the Exemplary Faculty Award from Colorado Mesa University in 2019 and 2020, attendance at the Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Summer Institute in 2019, and the Clarence Snow Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Utah in 2015–2016.