Dr. Cheri Lemieux Spiegel holds a Doctor of Philosophy in English from Old Dominion University and, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), both a Master of Arts and a Future Professoriate Graduate Certificate. While both degrees emphasized rhetoric, writing, and pedagogy, she also studied sociolinguistics and visual rhetoric during her time at Virginia Tech. Her doctoral research proposed and revised a theory of guerrilla rhetoric that was based upon the premise that guerrilla practice might be removed from the battlefield and used in the operations of nonviolent groups who struggle against the limitations of their conditions. Ultimately that work explored the affordances guerrilla concepts have in shaping positionality, tactics, and notions of community. Both degrees enriched Cheri’s life-long fascination with language, the power of words, and the way communication informs how we come to this shared existence we call life.

She is Professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA). Since accepting her full-time appointment at NOVA in 2008, she has held multiple leadership and administrative appointments; however, her first love, as someone who may forever identify first as a teacher, will always be the classroom. She teaches introductory writing courses that emphasize critical thinking and writing processes.

She approaches her classrooms and workshop spaces as places for creativity and curiosity; as opportunities to resist certainty and question convention. She hopes groups she facilitate leave their shared space prepared to continue expanding their understanding of themselves as the perfectly imperfect humans that they truly are. As the 2021-2022 recipient of the Loser-Savkar Fellowship, she began to study and teach principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Her work with NVC has grown from a value-added credential to the bedrock of her way of being and teaching.

Current CV