Faculty Profile: Tennyson L. O'Donnell

Tennyson L. O'Donnell
Director, Allan K. Smith Center for Writing and Rhetoric and Allan K. Smith Principal Lecturer in English Composition
Phone: (860) 297-2206	Office Location: 115 Vernon Street 215
Send e-mail to Tennyson L. O'Donnell
Trinity College faculty member since 2012	View office hours for Spring 2025

Degrees:

Ph.D., Syracuse Univ.
M.A., Cal. Polytechnic State Univ.
B.A., Brigham Young Univ.-Hawaii

Dr. Tennyson O’Donnell is an experienced administrator and teacher. He leads the Allan K. Smith Center for Writing and Rhetoric in an endowed position, which offers a minor in Rhetoric, Writing and Media Studies, administers Trinity’s writing requirements and writing assessment program, and provides special programming for student-writers and faculty.

Dr. O’Donnell is the Senior Director at the Center for Academic and Experiential Advising, the central hub for the Trinity Plus curriculum, where he coordinates many academic resources on campus as part of the Academic Resource Collaborative.

Dr. O’Donnell also directs the First Year Seminar Program, which offers small, discussion-rich classes, created out of a faculty’s passion for a subject, where all First Year students read critically and engage intellectually with a diverse group of peers to write regularly and develop research skills becoming enculturated into the behaviors of successful student-writers and college learners.

Dr. O’Donnell is also the Faculty Lead in the Trinity-InfoSys Partnership, which provides new Business Analysts at InfoSys with eight weeks of training, uniquely fusing business analysis, design thinking, liberal arts skills, and foundational technology.

His expertise in composition and cultural rhetoric informs his approach to teaching beginning and advanced writers to see writing and research beyond simple vocational skill sets. O’Donnell believes student-writers can learn to ask questions about the function of writing that will serve to sharpen their awareness of the discourse of their discipline and explore how that discourse participates in meaning-making.

O’Donnell and Jack Dougherty are co-editors of Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching, a book that explores integrating web tools into what we value most about a liberal arts education: the intensified learning opportunities presented by writing across the curriculum.

curriculum vitae

O'Donnell, Tennyson. "Academic Resources at the Intersection of Institutional and Personal Change." Teaching Academic Survival and Success Conference. Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 2024.
"Re-Centering Our Student Collaborations and Job-Joy Amidst Institutional Winds of Change." Panel: Bridget, Fullerton, Catherine Becker, Tennyson O'Donnell; Small Liberal Arts Colleges--Writing Program Administrators Conference, Lafayette College, January 2024.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. "Cultivating Collaborations Across Administrative Divisions to Promote Retention and Success of Struggling Students." Teaching Academic Survival and Success Conference, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 2023
John Dougherty and Tennyson O'Donnell, eds. Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Digital Humanities Series. University of Michigan Press, 2015.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Setting Parameters for Collecting and Analyzing Writing Center Usage Data.” International Writing Center Association Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, October 8-10, 2015.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Analyzing Qualitative Records with Data Visualization Tools.” National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Salt Lake City, UT, November 5-8, 2015.
“Stakeholder Expectations and the Vitality of Writing Center.” International Writing Center Association-National Conference on Peer Tutoring of Writing (joint conference), Orlando, FL, October 30-November 1, 2014.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Leopoldina Journals.” World History Association Conference, University of Hawai’i at Hilo, Hilo, HI, November 3, 2012.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “When a Rhetorician Teaches Literary Research Writing.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Louisville, KY, March 18, 2010.
Clyda S. Rent, John P. Bartkowski, and Tennyson O’Donnell. Earthly Insights as Viewed from Space. Funded by Stuart C. Irby. Fall 2008.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Working with ESL Writers.” “Writing Center Issues and Strategies in Writing Center Work.” 7th Annual Mississippi Writing Center Association Conference, Jackson, MS, September 29, 2007.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Re-Presenting Hawaiian Struggle and Catholic Service through Rereading Leopoldina’s Journals: A Case Study in the Complexity of Reading Identity in Colonial Representation.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, New York, NY, March 24, 2007.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “The Leopoldina Journals: Written Knowledge and the Rhetorical Construction of Hawai’i.” Rhetoric Society of America Conference, Memphis, TN, May 26-29, 2006.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “The Rhetorical Construction of Hawai’i: What Written Communication Does.” Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Honolulu, HI, January 12, 2006.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Autobiographical Scholarship and Literacy Narratives in the First Year Class: Teaching the Possibilities of Hybrid Texts.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, New York, NY, March 19-22, 2003.
O'Donnell, Tennyson. “Writing A Social History: Negotiating Identity In/Between Cultures.” Composing Identity. The Thomas R. Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, October 10-12, 2002.