Karen Gocsik

Karen Gocsik received her Ph.D. in English Literature from Case Western Reserve University. For the first 25 years of her career, Dr. Gocsik taught in and administered various writing programs at Dartmouth College. Intrigued by the challenges and rewards of public education, Dr. Gocsik came to UC San Diego in 2013 to direct the Warren College Writing Program. In 2015, she piloted a new Basic Writing curriculum for UC San Diego; in 2016, she stepped down from her position at Warren College to become the director of what is now the Analytical Writing Program.

Dr. Gocsik’s research interests focus on the teaching and practice of composition, including how novice writers construct new knowledge; how students compose multimodally; and how writing program administrators meet the various challenges of building and nurturing a writing program. She is the primary author of the Norton Writing about… series, which includes Writing about Movies, Writing about American Literature, Writing about World Literature, and Writing about Art. 

Throughout her career, Dr. Gocsik has been invested in the work of teaching and learning centers. At UC San Diego, she is a member of the Senior Council of the Teaching and Learning Commons. While at Dartmouth, she helped found the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, serving as a member of its executive team. She was twice recognized at Dartmouth for her undergraduate teaching, receiving the Dean of Faculty Teaching Award in 2010 and the Student Assembly Teaching Award in 2006. In 2012, she was named one of the Princeton Review’s Best 300 Professors.