Senior Lecturer of English, Director of the Writing Center and First-Year Writing
Words: Grace Milligan Admiraal ’20
Photo: Kayla Ruchti
Dr. Alison Gibson began her career at Wheaton in 2010 as Visiting Instructor of English, but over the years she’s gained many titles: Senior Lecturer of English, Director of the Writing Center, Director of First-Year Writing, and dramaturg for the arts across campus. On any given day, Gibson could be in a Blanchard classroom, the Writing Center, or Arena Theater.
Her responsibilities vary, but she sees a common thread. “All my roles are about story: reading the story, performing the story, and telling the story,” she said.
Gibson may be best known on campus for her interdisciplinary theater and literature course, Comedy and Tragedy. She came up with the course during a faculty seminar titled Theater as a Way of Knowing. “It was a transformational experience,” she said. “I suddenly understood that we are all called to be storytellers in our bodies, not just in written text.” So she created Comedy and Tragedy to help students become embodied
storytellers through reading, watching, and acting out plays.
The class served as a bridge to her work as dramaturg for Arena Theater and Wheaton’s Opera Mainstage, where she equips actors and audiences alike with historical context and resources. “I think of the dramaturg as like the Holy Spirit that’s moving behind the show, taking care of the story and ensuring it’s told as clearly as possible,” she said.
In her work with First-Year Writing and the Writing Center, she teaches students the value of telling their own stories and gives them the tools to do that well. She seeks to change their perception of writing. She explained, “Students tend to think that writing is a solitary task, but the Writing Center is rooted in community. We want them to understand that writing is collaborative.”
Gibson is especially excited for the library renovations that are part of Wheaton’s Faithfully Forward
campaign. The Writing Center will move from a back corner to just inside the library’s front doors with gathering space for up to 30 students. “The new location communicates that writing is a value we have at Wheaton,” she said. “We care about words as people whose faith is rooted in the Word made flesh.”
