Roger Austin
Composition Instructor

Where did you go to college? Michigan State University (BA), University of Michigan-Flint (MA), and Georgia State University (PhD).

What is your favorite class to teach?I find different classes enjoyable for different reasons, but recently I’ve really enjoyed teaching CO.300, Writing Arguments. It’s a great mix of different rhetorics and it’s fun to spend a little more time on argument as a macro genre and all its different shades/variations.

What brought you to CSU? My partner and I moved here in 2017 as I was finishing my PhD. We’d always heard great things about Colorado, I’d had family live here in the past and speak well of it, and my partner started her PhD at CU Boulder.

What did you want to be when you were a kid? As a kid, I wanted to be a few different things: an astronaut, a teacher, and a writer. Two out of three is pretty good, I think.

What is your favorite word? There are a lot of great words, but one I’ve recently come across is from old English: wintercearig; it means to feel a sadness or isolation like the dead of winter, but not necessarily caused by winter. On a happier note, while I lived in the South, I foundcattywampus fun to say and spot-on; it means askew or out of alignment.

Are you reading anything right now? Right now I’m reading Justin Cronin’s City of Mirrors.