Aetna Chair of Writing
Established in the 1980s, the Aetna Chair of Writing draws from the Aetna Life and Casualty Foundation’s Aetna Endowment to initiate, enhance, and otherwise further University of Connecticut writing programs.
Programs and Initiatives
The Aetna Chair of Writing and its associated funds support initiatives that promote writing initiatives for students, educators, and the UConn community. Examples include:
Student Development
- Aetna Celebration of Student Writing, a poster fair and awards celebration that showcases student work and writing-related research.
- The Aetna Graduate Research and Travel Award, which awards for site research or professional travel aimed at studying or presenting on writing in academic disciplines, workplaces, or other contexts.
- Numerous Aetna Writing Prizes recognize writing excellence among UConn undergraduate and graduate students.
Community Engagement
- Long River Review, a literary and arts journal produced annually by UConn undergraduate students.
- Poetic Journeys, a literary public art project that features work by UConn students, faculty, and staff.
- Aetna writers-in-residence, who give readings and work with students in one-on-one tutorials.
- A host of other visiting authors, speakers, and teachers. Recent examples include the Pandemic Journaling Project and Racism in the Margins initiative.
Educator Events
- The Connecticut Writing Project Summer Institute, which supports professional resources for teachers, schools, and school districts.
- First-Year Writing’s Annual Conference on the Teaching of Writing
- Avery Point writing retreats
Meet the Aetna Chair
Brenda Jo Brueggemann
Aetna Chair of Writing and Professor of English
Brenda Jo Brueggemann is Professor of English and Aetna Endowed Chair of Writing at the University of Connecticut; she also teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College during the summer. She has been deaf (genetic) from birth. After college, she taught high school in her rural Kansas community for five years before going to graduate school. In the mid-1990s, bolstered by the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, she helped conceptualize the new field of Disability Studies.
She has written, co-written, edited, or co-edited 16 books, including nine memoirs in the “Deaf Lives” series she created for Gallaudet University Press, and more than 70 essays and articles at the intersections of Deaf/Disability Studies and writing/art. Her current research centers on disability and deafness in the visual and literary arts.
Past Aetna Chairs
Professor Emerita of English
2023-2024 Advisory Board
Pamela Bedore
Associate Professor of English
Writing Coordinator at UConn Avery Point
Lisa Blansett
Assistant Professor-in-Residence of English
Director of the First-Year Writing Program
Scott Campbell
Associate Professor of English
Writing Coordinator at UConn Hartford
Ellen Carillo
Professor of English
Writing Coordinator at UConn Waterbury
Jason Courtmanche
Assistant Professor-in-Residence of English
Director of the Connecticut Writing Project
Tom Deans
Professor of English
Director of the UConn Writing Center
Hannah Dostal
Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, Neag School of Education
Sean Forbes
Assistant Professor-in-Residence of English
Director of Creative Writing Program
Serkan Görkemli
Associate Professor of English
Writing Coordinator at UConn Stamford
Sara Harrington
Associate University Librarian for Academic Engagement, UConn Library
Robert Hasenfratz
Professor of English
Yohei Igarashi
Associate Professor of English
Assistant Director of Digital Humanities and Media Studies, UConn Humanities Institute
Blair Johnson
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences
Douglas Kaufman
Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, Neag School of Education
Adam McClain
Ph.D. Candidate in English
Victoria Ford Smith
Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies