Sarah Pittock

Bio

Sarah Peterson Pittock has taught in Stanford’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric since 2011. Her PWR1 courses include Growing Up Global: The Rhetoric of Children's Culture Today and a number of writing courses for the first-year program Education as Self-Fashioning. She also teaches PWR2: Hope, Health, and Healing: The Rhetoric of Medicine as well as courses in PWR's Notation for Science Communication. In all of her courses, Sarah encourages students to follow their curiosity and revise with discipline as they make meaning with diverse audiences.

Sarah earned a BA in English and French Literatures with Honors in Humanities from Stanford University and a PhD in Literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her PhD dissertation investigated the ways eighteenth-century British women became literary critics and scholars without access to higher education. Through salon conversation and letter writing, learned women of the Enlightenment built reputations as public intellectuals. Their strategies — conversation, collaboration, and community — inspire Sarah’s research and work as a teacher and writing program administrator. From 2013-2018, she served as Associate Director of the Hume Center, supporting a writing-enriched curriculum through tutor education, writing workshops, graduate writing and speaking programming, and writing pedagogy consultations. From 2017-2022, she directed Bing Honors College, a September program that accelerates rising seniors' progress on their honors research and writing. Her work has been published in Women's Writing, the WAC Journal, Writing Center Journal, and edited collections.

Academic Appointments

• PWR Advanced Lecturer, Writing and Rhetoric Studies

Administrative Appointments

• Coordinator, Writing in the Major (2018 - 2021)
• Director, Bing Honors College (2017 - 2022)
• Associate Director, Hume Center for Writing and Speaking (2013 - 2018)
• Writing Specialist, Department of History (2014 - 2015)

Honors & Awards

• Hoagland Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education, Stanford University (2016-2017)
• Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Research Award, Stanford University (2012-2013)
• Harold D. Kelling Doctoral Dissertation Chapter Prize, University of Colorado, Boulder (2002)
• Edwin Devaney Dissertation Fellowship, University of Colorado (2001)
• Bernice Udick Dissertation Fellowship, University of Colorado, Boulder (2000)