VIRGINIA M SCHWARZ
Assistant Professor of English
Metro College Faculty Affiliate
San Francisco State University
Composition Pedagogy; Writing Program Administration; Social Justice Theories of Assessment/ Grading; Community College Faculty Development; Graduate Student Mentorship; Equity, Inclusion, & Access in Higher Education
ABOUT ME
Greetings! My name is Virginia “Gin” Schwarz, and I am an Assistant Professor at San Francisco State. I love my job working with first-year students, graduate students, and faculty colleagues. As an alum of San Diego State and Cal State Long Beach, returning to the west coast and the CSU system truly is a dream come true.
Before coming to SFSU, I taught technical and general education writing courses at various community colleges in Los Angeles, CA; Portland, OR; and Madison, WI for eleven years. I earned my Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric and M.S. in Education Leadership and Policy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I feel so fortunate to be an educator and have learned so much from the kindness, criticality, and dedication of students and teachers.
My research focuses on assessment, evaluation, and the social and rhetorical construction of merit. My most recent project explores contract grading and the different ways writing teachers engage this classroom practice depending on their beliefs, values, identities, and contexts. I am committed to working towards more equitable and just social futures. You can find some of my scholarship in Composition Studies, Journal of Writing Assessment, College Composition and Communication, and Critical Theory and Qualitative Data Analysis in Education.
Feel free to contact me! Assessment is my favorite thing to talk about. I also enjoy geeking out about all things teaching and care deeply about supporting both undergraduate and graduate students. Outside of school, I love vegetarian food, boardgames, MTG, Pokemon GO, and my cat, Mr. Zucchini Ralphie.