English graduate student Matthew Vetter was one of five Ohio University graduate students who received Named Fellowships for the 2014-15 school year to pursue research and creative projects.
Each of the five was awarded a fellowship of $15,000, plus a full tuition scholarship for fall and spring semesters.
Vetter was named the Claude Kantner Graduate Fellow.
He is a fifth-year student pursuing a Ph.D. in English. He is from Maysville, KY.
His project is “Teaching Wikipedia: The pedagogy and politics of an open-access writing community.”
“The fact that it is frequently banned in the classroom reveals what many academics believe: Wikipedia has no place in higher learning,” he says.
“My research challenges this belief by asserting the many opportunities the encyclopedia provides for teaching writing, rhetoric and research. By asking students to observe and write in Wikipedia, instructors can engage them in the textual practices of a productive, collaborative community of writers. As a teaching associate at Ohio University, I’m designing courses to help students explore these opportunities. In addition to maximizing learning outcomes, we’re discovering that we can also improve the encyclopedia’s coverage of local, under-represented topics and diversify its editor base. Together, we’re changing higher education by opening up the classroom to public intellectual work, while thinking critically about how our contributions can support Wikipedia’s agenda to remain the ‘free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.'”
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