Jean Grace

Jean's Affiliations: Disability Studies, Writing Institute

Jean A. Grace is director of the William S. Dietrich II Institute for Writing Excellence, assistant chair of the English Department, and Director of Undergraduate Studies for Public and Professional Writing. A Teaching Professor in the English Department, she facilitates writing workshops and writing accountability groups for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. She is drawn to program administration as a form of creative work that opens up possibilities for students, faculty, and writers across the university.

Jean was the founding director of Pitt's Public and Professional Writing program, which she led for 16 years, guiding it from a certificate program to a thriving undergraduate major. She designed two of PPW's signature courses (Writing for the Public and Integrating Writing and Design), helped faculty develop many other PPW courses, and taught first-year composition for many years with particular attention to supporting underprepared writers. Jean has a long-standing commitment to supporting writers with disabilities and neurodivergent writers and has worked to build disability studies into the core of the Writing Institute's programming. She is also professionally engaged with workforce issues affecting non-tenure-stream faculty in English and writing studies.

Before her current role, Jean served as associate director of the Writing Center for 18 years and as associate or acting director of the Composition Program for four years. She has also taught courses in Pitt's College of Business Administration and in graduate programs at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy and Management and Tepper School of Business.

Jean has written policy-oriented publications for foundations and nonprofits, with a focus on end-of-life care, nursing, and nonprofit administration; this work fueled her broader interest in writing as a tool for shaping public policy.