Sarah Kugler

Sarah Kugler (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Kansas. She holds an MA in Rhetoric and Composition from KU, and bachelor’s degrees in Art and Philosophy from Northwestern College (IA). Kugler’s research interests include writing center theory and pedagogy, sociolinguistics, English Language Studies, antiracist writing pedagogy, Critical Language Awareness, and Critical Discourse Analysis.

Kugler is the 2023 recipient of the International Writing Centers Association Dissertation Grant for her dissertation, titled: Audience, Power, Identity, and Language Ideologies in Graduate Writing Consultations. Her dissertation is an interdisciplinary project which uses consultation audio and video-recordings, interviews, and surveys to ask: a) how graduate writers and consultants talk about instructors and other powerful audiences during writing center consultations, and b) how graduate students’ identities impact their understanding of and talk about those powerful audiences. The project employs Critical Discourse Analysis as its methodology and draws on research methods and theories of identity from sociolinguistics.

She has a co-authored journal article forthcoming in the Fall 2024 issue of Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, titled “The Language of Writing Center Antiracist and Linguistic Justice Statements.” She has presented at a variety of conferences, including IWCA and CCCC. Her most recent project, titled “Remixing Discord and Reddit: Incorporating Digital Platforms into the Writing Classroom” has been accepted as an Engaged Learning Session at CCCC 2025.

Kugler won a 2023-2024 Carlin GTA Award, a university-wide competition which recognizes excellence in teaching by graduate students at the University of Kansas. She has designed and taught a variety of classes at KU, including an ENGL 102 course on the rhetoric of food, an ENGL 102 course centering Critical Language Awareness and linguistic justice, and an ENGL 380 course on rhetoric and composition history, theory, and pedagogy.

Kugler has also worked at the KU Writing Center, developing and facilitating programming for internal consultant training, writing fellows programs, and graduate writing groups.