Welcome to ASC Abhijit Rao (Learning Strategist- Academic Success Centre)

Dr Abhi Rao has over 15 years of work experience as an instructor and academic skills administrator. He completed his doctorate in English with a focus on Rhetoric and Professional Communication from Iowa State University. He developed a writing centre for the Ivy College of Business at Iowa State University and directed it until 2019. He moved to Canada to teach at Lakehead University and served as their academic zone coordinator for three years. He joins the Academic Success Centre team at UFV as a learning strategist for the Abbotsford campus.

As an academic skills administrator, he has developed various initiatives, which include tutoring programming, writing supports, and service-learning outreach. The scope of programmatic deployment has included synchronous, asynchronous, and digital modes to ensure accessibility for diverse learners and targeted demographics that include but are not limited to indigenous, international, first-generation, and non-traditional learners. His approach to programmatic development is informed by the scholarship of researchers such as Charles Bazerman (2002) and David Russell (2002), which focuses the pedagogical role of writing as a means to learn as well, which provides impetus for teaching students how to write within the disciplines.

He believes that understanding the contextual position of each student—social, cultural, and economic forces that shape the students learning experiences—is crucial in delivering programs that are not only engaging, but also relevant for the student. Therefore, Paolo Freire’s (1970) body of work on developing educational programming relevant to the student’s contextual environment strongly shapes his programmatic approaches.

As an educator, he has taught writing-intensive courses in disciplines such as English, Business, Arts, Agriculture, Engineering, Computer Science, Nursing, and Education. His interest in discipline-specific discourse has helped him develop various academic and professional writing courses within these disciplines.

His research interests include writing centre pedagogy, writing across the curriculum, academic success programing, and multimodal communications. He has published scholarship in the fields of professional communication and actively presents at conferences within the fields of communication, writing, and academic success.

Bazerman, C. (2000). Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. The WAC Clearinghouse.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.

Russell, D. R. (2002). Writing in the academic disciplines: A curricular history. SIU Press.