Patrick McKercher
Lecturer, UCSC Writing Program
Office Hours
(Spring 2008): M 12-1, W 10-11 & by appointment
Office: 125 College 8 Phone: 831 459-2083 (msg
9-3516)
email: pmmckerc@ucsc.edu
Current Projects:
James Burke's Knowledge Web
Past Projects:
Educational virtual reality through Virtual College 8 (eCollegE)
UCWrite.org (a UC-wide writing resource)
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Got Game? (videogames) |
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Rogues, Revolutionaries and Visionaries (creativity) |
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Bio
I grew up in southern California (Navy brat), did many plays in high school and transferred to the local JC as a pre-med major. At San Diego State, I changed my major to English and applied as a junior for teaching program; I have been teaching ever since (in fact I was teaching at SDSU before I had a BA or even a high school diploma). I became enthralled with rhetoric and the teaching of writing in graduate school and went on to do my Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in those fields and linguistics. My dissertation is nominally on my hero, Kenneth Burke and his parallels to General Systems Theory, but it's really about metaphor, laying the groundwork for a new cognitive basis for rhetoric. In my spare time I do outreach work to public schools (in particular, I'm investigating how to use virtual reality to do this), restore our 1906 home, work on 1960s vintage roadsters and build sea kayaks. I'm also been involved in saving the home of Andrew P. Hill, our local John Muir, who founded the Sempervirens Club, which has saved most of the remaining local old-growth redwoods.
Last updated Apr 2008 email: pmmckerc@ucsc.edu .