Kay Emmert

Kay Emmert is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and currently serves as Co-Director for the Program in Professional Writing (PPW). She has taught in the program since 2012 and she served as Assistant Director from August 2017 to December 2019. In 2020, in collaboration with Andrew Moss, she was awarded a grant from the Teaching Advancement Board and Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning for their work on emotion in the learning of business writing. She is a founding member of the Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition, and has taught labor leadership and grievance sessions for the UIUC School of Labor and Employee Relations’ United Steel Worker Summer School. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Georgia College and was a first-generation college student from LeFlore County, OK. Prior to coming to UIUC, she coordinated a Writers in the Schools program, guiding and supervising first-time instructors in the teaching of middle school creative writing classes. In addition to teaching college composition, rhetoric, creative writing, and literature, she also has experience teaching creative writing at the secondary education level.