Juan Valdez (2015), Content Writer, Plenty
The semester after I finished my M.A., I began teaching as an English and Synergy
program adjunct faculty member at the University of Wyoming. After a few years of
teaching English and Composition, I accepted a position at Bright Agrotech, a hydroponic
farming equipment company, writing web, educational, and blog content. A few months
after my hiring, Bright Agrotech was acquired by Plenty, a Silicon Valley startup,
with the aim of building hydroponic farms that can feed the world.
My experience with the English M.A. program prepared me for the fast paced, mercilessly
poised work environment that Silicon Valley culture expects from their content creators.
My team creates video, blog, graphic design, and podcast content for a variety of
external and internal use. With frequent content requests that give less than twenty-four
hour turn-around, we’re forced to work quickly and efficiently to move from the whisp
of an idea, to a focused outline, to a well-planned draft, and finally through a grueling
editing and feedback process.
The M.A.’s focus on repeated outlining and writing of high-level work aimed at literature,
rhetoric, and philosophy prepared me to be able to rapidly gloss any type of media
and quickly turn it into a simple, teachable, and digestible format. Most importantly,
the M.A. taught me that perfect is the enemy of good - there’s always improvements
to be made in our lives, but with so many problems in the world to fix, writers and
thinkers need to work quickly and confidently to deliver lessons and solutions where
most needed.
Elissa Hansen (2007), Manager, Oxford University Press
After graduating from the MA program at Wyoming, I completed my Ph.D. in English at
the University of Minnesota in 2012. I taught professional writing and composition
as an adjunct at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA, before my family moved to the
UK in 2014. After starting on the ground floor of Oxford University Press’s Law production
team that year, I was given increasing responsibility there and I’m now the manager
overseeing 80 percent of OUP’s US/UK academic book production and all of its US/UK
academic book manufacturing operations.
At Wyoming, I focused on medieval literature under the guidance of an inspiring and
supportive committee, which prepared me to ace the English subject GRE and gain admission
to Minnesota with a first-year fellowship. Despite adding on a Medieval Studies minor
and (on the personal side) a baby, I completed the program a year ahead of schedule,
in large part because I won a final-year dissertation fellowship that allowed me to
focus on writing.
While at Wyoming, I was selected for a graduate assistantship at Eighteenth-Century
Life, where the editor of the journal gave me a crash course in the considerations
around copy-editing, proofreading, peer review, typesetting, and readership for an
academic journal. This experience enabled me to go on to build a clientele as a freelance
proofreader and copy editor, and to be signed on as part of the proofreading pool
for Oxford University Press. When my family moved to Oxford, this experience was instrumental
in OUP’s decision to give me a chance at a production role, despite my purely academic
background.
My second graduate assistantship while in the MA program, at the local Wyoming Survey
and Analysis Center, not only honed my ability to create technical documentation and
edit it for multiple audiences, but also socialized me to work toward a shared goal
with a variety of personalities in an office environment. I used both skill sets daily
as a manager responsible for building a strong production team and liaising with a
wide range of internal and external stakeholders globally.
Delissa Minnick (2001), Field Manager, BLM Cody
At its core, a sophisticated legal practice demands the intellectual rigor fostered by the English MA program. The ability to delve beyond the words on the page to find and construct meaning is as essential to the practicing attorney as it is to the English MA candidate. The skills developed in the MA program --to identify and analyze threads of thought across various works, authors, genres, and periods--are the same skills required to identify clients' legal issues, to analyze the applicable law across various courts and jurisdictions, and to advise clients on possible courses of action. Every day, whether with my clients, opposing counsel, or the court, I rely upon the skills honed in my MA courses.
In 2009, Minnick joined the BLM as a planning and environmental coordinator at the
Wyoming State Office. She served as an attorney-advisor with the Office of the Solicitor
and as BLM Wyoming's litigation coordinator.
“As a Wyoming girl, I know how lucky I am to get to live and work in the Bighorn Basin,”
said Minnick. “Managing our public lands alongside such dedicated public, agricultural,
government and industry partners is a dream come true.”
Minnick has undergraduate, graduate and law degrees from the University of Wyoming.
After graduating law school, she practiced environmental, natural resource and public
lands law with Holland & Hart.
“Having grown up in Wyoming, I have both a passion for our wild places and an understanding
of the importance of prudent development of our natural resources,” said Minnick.
She and her 9-year-old daughter, Kik, are sport and outdoor recreation enthusiasts
and spend the weekends trying to run, hike, bike, swim, ride, ski and explore as many
miles as possible.
Laurie Milford (1999), Director of Development, High Country News
I have 17 years of experience in senior nonprofit management and I’m currently the
development director at High Country News, where I’m in charge of fundraising $1.8
million each year to support an important magazine and website about the American
West. Previously, I was an executive director at the Wyoming Outdoor Council, where
I played a role in establishing the first state laws to regulate the flaring of methane
in natural gas drilling operations and to require oil and gas companies to determine
baseline water quality before using hydraulic fracturing. I was involved in the long-term
protection of more than 3 million acres of BLM and Forest Service lands, including
the landmark Wyoming Range Legacy Act and was instrumental in raising funds to achieve
these successes. I served as a production editor for Westview Press in Boulder, Colorado,
and I hold a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English from the University of Iowa
and the University of Wyoming respectively. I graduated from the Institute for Conservation
Leadership in 2008; in 2010 the institute recognized me as an exemplary leader in
the conservation movement.
Do you see yourself serving a mission at your favorite nonprofit organization? Helping
children in your community or across the world; providing food for the hungry or helping
to safeguard the environment? The MA program in the English Department helped me to
prepare for a career in nonprofit management by sharpening my skills in critical thinking
and communication, both oral and written. Most importantly the program bolstered my
self-confidence: As a teaching assistant, I learned how to organize and lead others.
And as a student, I learned how to research, analyze, write, and persuade. The MA
program in English is rigorous. It would benefit those who are preparing to perform
marketing and communications, policy-making, fundraising, or management in the nonprofit
sector.
Kristen Thoen (1999), Global Marketing Manager, 3M Technologies
Technical Writer. Corporate Trainer. eBusiness Leader. Sales Operations Manager. Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Sales Trainer. U.S. Product Marketer. Global Marketing Manager. These are job titles one could hold with a MA in English. I know because I have held them all while working at 3M, a Fortune 100 Company.
For some of the jobs, I was surrounded by people with Masters in Information Science degrees, engineering degrees, and PhDs. Today, in the Healthcare Business for 3M, I work closely with people who hold MD/PhDs, Bachelors in Nursing, JDs, and MBAs. Occasionally, however, I find other liberal arts majors, and we share a hidden love of complex ideas, well-reasoned arguments, and the exquisitely-worded paragraph.
Each time I have started a new role, I have had at least one colleague wonder how someone with a different degree from his or hers could perform that particular role. They ask, “How can you do this job that ‘relies heavily on statistics and analysis,’ ‘where all of your other colleagues have an MBA,’ or ‘where you are the only one in the room without a PhD in science?’” They quickly learn that the skills acquired while earning my MA at UW are transferable. Examples of these skills are being able to analyze, write, think critically and strategically, research, identifying one’s audience, and persuasion.
For example, the skills I first used to analyze poetry I have since used to analyze manufacturing processes. The skills my thesis advisor taught me have proven equally useful for writing a six-word ad for a medical device, a technical bulletin, or a strategic marketing plan.
Literature, however, still speaks to me, and I have relied on extracurricular activities to continue to fulfill my love of the written word: I edited a book about day trading that was featured on the New York Times Bestseller List; wrote the lead article for an internationally published book about Early American Theater; presented a paper adapted from my Master’s thesis at a conference in Spain.
To the curious students asking themselves what they could do with a MA in English, I would answer: anything you want.
Wendy Matlock (1997), Assistant Professor of English, Kansas State University
When people ask me how I came to be an English professor, I always credit my Master’s work at UW. Even though I was a student there for only two years, the intimate program allowed me to get to know professors as role models and not just as authorities. The course work provided opportunities for me to explore old passions and to discover new interests. In addition, the department offered new teachers excellent mentoring. Pedagogical support and intellectual discovery converged most productively when I served as a teaching intern in a Chaucer class at the same time that I took a course on medieval women. I was hooked.
My professional life since then has been devoted to the study and teaching of medieval literature and culture. I completed a Ph.D. at the Ohio State University, and I have held tenure track positions at two different universities: first at California State University, Sacramento, and now at Kansas State University. Making the earliest English literature accessible to modern students continues to inspire me, and I have published articles in Philological Quarterly, Studies in Philology, and the Journal of English and Germanic Philology. I am currently working on a book about how Middle English debate poems like The Owl and the Nightingale, Piers Plowman, and The Debate of the Carpenter’s Tools present households as contested spaces devoted to both family and work.
Dr. Marlene Tromp (1990), President, Boise State University
My experience at the University of Wyoming was characterized by intellectual challenge and real professional support. My coursework as a student opened up new horizons for me, and the faculty engaged with my writing and thinking in ways that showed genuine care and thoughtfulness. I have genuinely wonderful memories of the classes I took at Wyoming. Moreover, the support that the department offered as I moved on to a Ph.D. program and, later, into my career, was invaluable. They humanized the profession for me with their interest in my intellectual growth and well-being, and I will always be grateful for the support they provided.
In April 2019, I was named the 7th president of Boise State University. Prior to that, I was dean of Arizona State’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. I was a Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Denison University. I served for six years as Chair of Women’s Studies, and I have also served as Chair of the Faculty and Chair of the Faculty Development Committee. My service at the college and in the profession at large, on the Board of the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association and in my work with junior colleagues in my field, is modeled on the generous support the University of Wyoming faculty always gave.
In addition to a number of articles, I am author of Altered States: Sex, Nation, Drugs, and Self-Transformation in Victorian Spiritualism (SUNY, 2006) and The Private Rod: Sexual Violence, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England (UP Virginia, 2000). I have written a new book entitled Force of Habit: Life and Death on the Titanic, which is under review. I have also co-edited and contributed to Fear and Loathing: Victorian Xenophobia (Ohio State UP, Forthcoming), Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in the Nineteenth Century (Ohio State UP, 2007) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon: Beyond Sensation (SUNY 2000). I am presently at work on a new book that considers the Victorian connections between murder and money.
