Program Profiles

In 1980 Janice Lauer’s “Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric,” published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, included a listing of seven institutions that were “offering or planning courses or programs in Rhetoric” (193). By 1987, David Chapman and Gary Tate reported in Rhetoric Review the results of a doctoral program survey, which revealed that 53 universities offered a specialization in composition and rhetoric. Of that 53, “only 38 produced written materials describing the comp/rhetoric specialization, and many flatly admitted that their programs had not been formally recognized or that they did not have the faculty to make the program viable” (125). 

Following these initial efforts to track and document the characteristics of burgeoning doctoral programs, Rhetoric Review continued to publish scholarship on doctoral program development in its pages as well as a full listing of programs and their features, information gathered through CDPRC-sponsored surveys. No longer a feature of Rhetoric Review, program profiles are now regularly updated by the CDPRC and posted on our website (see below). We hope this information is useful to prospective graduate students, faculty members and program coordinators, and researchers of the discipline.

As of November 2024, we are in the process of updating program profiles. To update your program's profile, please complete this form (feel free to copy and paste unchanged information from the 2018 listing).