Phone:  465-1223

Office:   LA3025C

Email:  ahelmstett@usi.edu

I grew up on a dairy farm in central Minnesota, right outside a town with a whopping population of 600. After high school graduation, I moved to the big city to attend a small liberal arts college. There, in the spirit of the sixties, I searched for the answer to the question “Who am I?” and wound up majoring in philosophy. I continued studying philosophy at the University of Minnesota, earning the M.A. degree in 1978. After some years teaching part-time and working as a writer and editor for a nonprofit organization, I returned to graduate school to study English Literature. I attended North Dakota State University for the M.A. degree, and then in 2005 took a doctorate at the University of North Dakota. In my dissertation I applied theories of Lyric to ancient Greek epigrams as a way of exploring the epistemological status of poetic language.

As a graduate teaching assistant at the University of North Dakota, I also became interested in the field of Rhetoric and Composition. I began working both in the administration of the university’s Composition program and as a writing consultant in the university’s writing center. This combination of interests in interdisciplinary studies and student writing led me in 2006 to the Department of English at USI, where I now teach humanities and composition courses.

Having lived most of my life on the northern plains, I confess to some difficulty adjusting to Indiana’s summers; on the other hand, I don’t miss the bitterly cold wind chills of a Minnesota winter. In my spare time, I love to read, listen to music, and take walks with my dog, Curly, who is approaching 100 years of dog age and still loves to greet me at the door when I come home.