Executive Director, Institute for Writing
Studies
Associate Professor
English Department, St. John's Liberal Arts and Sciences
Institute for Writing Studies, St. Augustine Library
Queens campus
Phone:(718) 990-5610
owensd@stjohns.edu
Degrees
University at Albany, 1990, D.A., English (composition
pedagogy)
University at Albany, 1988, M.A., English (poetry)
SUNY Geneseo, 1985, B.A., English and Art (double major), summa cum
laude
Profile
Derek Owens started teaching at St. John's University in
1994; before that taught in the Expository Writing Program at
Harvard, the Experimental College at Tufts, and worked as an
academic counselor in the Higher Education Opportunity Program at
Siena College. In 2006 he created the Institute for Writing
Studies, a multifaceted program containing the University's two
Writing Centers, the First-Year Writing Program, and the Writing
Across the Curriculum Program. His teaching and research interests
include composition pedagogy; Writing Program administration;
ecocomposition and sustainability; nonfiction prose; place-based
pedagogy; future studies; and experimental and hybrid forms of
writing.