Service Statement

Synopsis of Service

Internal Service

English, Writing, and Cultural Studies Dept.

Held leadership positions:

Program Assessment Coordinator (2021-pres.)
Writing Awards Event Assistant (2021-24)
Social Media Coordinator (2021-23)
Proposed and facilitated 2 departmental teaching with technology workshops (2019)

Served on committees:

Chair of Writing and Information Literacy in the Disciplines (WILD) Committee (2023-24)
Chair of Accessibility Committee (2021-22)
Member of 1 department search committee (2021-22)

Represented department at Pace and in the field:

Authored and maintained 8 open-access position statements, classroom policies, and informational resources (2018-pres.)
Authored 2 technological onboarding documents for students and faculty (2019-21)
Presented department degrees and concentrations to prospective majors at the Challenge and Achievement at Pace (CAP) program information session (2019)

Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

Held leadership positions:

Pleasantville (PLV) Writing-Enhanced Course (WEC) program director (2021-pres.)

Advanced the mission of advocacy and academic reform:

Dyson Curriculum Committee (2021-pres.)
First-Year Experience (FYE) Subcommittee (2024-pres.)
Community and Social Justice Working Group (2020-22)
Digital Literacy Working Group (2018-19)

Pace University

Advanced the mission of advocacy, academic reform, and effective writing assessment:

BIPOC Collective (2024-pres.)
Cofacilitated Faculty Center bicampus workshops as WEC PLV Director (2023)
Conducted writing assessment for student placement in 2 programs (2019-21)

Attended commencement (2019)

Served as faculty advisor for 2 student organizations:

Asian Student Union (2019-24)
Chroma Literary Journal (2019-20)

External Service

Served on 2 conference committees and as volunteer staff at 1 conference:

Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee on Disability Issues in College Composition (CDICC) (2022-pres.)
Computers & Writing Organizing Committee (2022)
Volunteer staff for Access Action Hub and nextGEN information tables at CCCC (2019)

Served on 4 awards committees:

Technology Innovator Award Committee (2024)
Kairos Awards for Graduate Students/NTT Faculty in Service, Scholarship/Research, and Teaching Committee (2023)
Gail E. Hawisher & Cynthia L. Selfe Caring for the Future Award Committee (2023)
CCCC Disability in College Composition Travel Awards Committee (2019-22)

Engaged in editorial service:

Editorial board member for WAC Clearinghouse #writing series (2025-pres.)
Outreach editor for Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics (JOMR) (2022-pres.)
Social Media Manager for Kairos (2019-pres.)

Conducted manuscript reviews:

Reviewed 5 manuscripts for flagship conferences and journals (2023-24)

Served as informal consultant:

Advised on hybrid modalities for Watson Conference (2024)
Contributed to WPA-L listserv discussions about racism and sexism in the field (2018)
Advised and/or mentored 3 graduate students (2022-24)

Engaged in community outreach:

Editor and docent for photo exhibit commemorating the Tamil genocide (2019)
Participant in ME Action #MillionsMissing and other calls to action (2022-pres.)
Peer reviewer for Incarcerated Writers Initiative (2019)

Memberships and Professional Development

Received 2 certifications:

Mental Health First Aid Certification (2024)
Online & Hybrid Teaching Recertification (2020, originally certified 2015 at Rutgers)

Member of professional organizations:

Phi Beta Kappa, Dartmouth chapter (2025-pres.)
Society for the Study of Affect (2024-pres.)
Alliance for Refusing Generative Artificial Intelligence (2023-pres.)
Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (2021-pres.)
American Association of University Professors (2020-pres.)
National Council of Teachers of English (2019-pres.)

Attended professional development events:

Attended 5 webinars on access, autoethnography, and AI refusal (2023-24)

Received two prestigious awards that recognize my service to the field (as well as my teaching and creative and scholarly activity):

Technology Innovator Award (2023)
Michelle Kendrick Award for Outstanding Digital Production/Scholarship for "Carework and Writing During COVID" (2023)

Introduction: Connecting Repairing Composition to Service

The same racialized, pained, and painful affects that shape my “repairing composition”—my extension of Trammell's "repairing play," which contends that torture is play for BIPOC systematically subjected to racial violence — also inform my service activity. My internal and external service roles connect me to institutional, field-specific, and public stakeholders in ways that facilitate the implementation of my diasporic-disabled praxis. The language of disability justice and decolonization is often superficially deployed in higher education, meant to resettle (rather than dismantle) settler-colonial, capitalist, supremacist systems and suppress the pain they cause. In each of my capacities, I strive to create community with students and faculty across disciplines and unsettle established colonialist and ableist perceptions of academic modes of knowledge-building, distribution of power, and organization of labor, space, and time.

At Pace, advising the Asian Student Union (ASU) and co-advising Chroma Literary Journal through a transitional period allowed me to become further involved in student life, as I communicated with their executive boards about programming, submissions, and online presence and arranged co-sponsored literary readings featuring Asian American writers. Participating in university working groups and the BIPOC collective has allowed me to collaborate with individuals across the university on academic reform, social justice issues, and digital ethics; in these groups, I worked on a digital media ethics policy and a toolkit for composing alt text and provided input on discussions about social justice. Serving on the Dyson Curriculum Committee and the First-Year Experience Subcommittee has taught me a great deal about curricular design, course design, and course attributes and has enabled me to contribute my perspective to ongoing discussions around antiracism, disability justice, and equity, especially regarding writing-enhanced attributes, academic integrity, and core reform. Directing the PLV WEC program and spearheading the radical revision of program assessment for my department have demystified administrative roles for me — a subset of university work I previously knew little about as an NTT faculty member. In all of these capacities, I work to advance effective principles of writing pedagogy, assessment, and community-first course design that are anti-surveillance, nonpunitive, and receptive to culturally specific orientations to relational knowledge-building, composition, temporality, and spatiality.

My external service roles allow me to bring my creative-critical, pedagogical, and cultural orientations to the writing studies field-at-large and to my commitments as a member of the Eelam Tamil diaspora and chronic illness communities. Through my editorial service, I have critiqued the academy's rigid timelines and expectations of ever-intensifying scholarly productivity, redirecting these ongoing conversations toward alternatives to traditional knowledge-building and an ethic of care. In my committee appointments, I have sought to monitor and critique issues of racism, colonialism, ableism, and labor and precarity within our professional organizations, and I simultaneously work to materially support junior, nontenured, and multiply marginalized and underrepresented scholars. I have also engaged in community outreach, dedicating time and resources to participating in and amplifying discussions about academic ableism, the pandemic, and the Tamil genocide. This work has been cited, shared, and included in lists of resources by other activists. These acts of service are often dismissed by universities but are vital to maintaining my communities and sense of self and to surviving in an academy steeped in colonialism, white supremacy, genocide, and capitalist exploitation.

Given the nature of my work, I perceive my writing, research, and teaching as forms of service; however, in accordance with tenure and promotion requirements, I have organized my service into internal roles, external roles, and activity that resists easy classification within tenure and promotion protocols but constitutes service nonetheless.

Internal Service

PLV WEC Director: With Dr. Meaghan Brewer (the NYC WEC director), I facilitated 8 WEC workshops (averaging 10 attendees each); reviewed, provided feedback on, and approved over 50 WEC applications; presented on approaches to AI and writing in the "Faculty Center Teaching Tips: Low Tech Tips for Big Problems" workshop; and provided one-on-one asynchronous and synchronous mentoring for numerous faculty members seeking a WE designation. I also revised the WEC Guidebook, reformatting it according to ADA/WCAG standards, and authored the "Writing with(out) AI" statement included in the guidebook, which summarizes current effective practices around generative AI (GenAI) in writing instruction and assessment.
Program Assessment Coordinator: Building on relevant contemporary research, I have established innovative, robust procedures for program assessment. I used dynamic criteria mapping — a grounded theory approach to eliciting locally-informed, context-sensitive criteria — to uncover the values of our writing program by collecting and coding data from faculty members. Using this work, I refined departmental learning objectives and student learning outcomes to span our programmatic areas (Rhetoric, Creative Writing, Literature), after which I reverse-engineered a rubric that is scalable and better accommodates differences across our diverse courses. This rubric's combinatorial nature is a natural offshoot of my diasporic-disabled approach to digital composition, resulting in a process that is responsive, relational, and infinitely customizable, reducing access friction for faculty members participating in assessment and capturing subject-specific data that recognizes and values interdisciplinary, transgenre work.
Online Content and Social Media Creator: I created and moderated the "Write Your Future" Discord server for our department, premised on restorative justice pedagogies to create social, collaborative spaces for department faculty and majors, which was especially useful in the first year of the pandemic. I created and moderated channels for online and hybrid write-ins on this server.
Dyson Curriculum Committee: I attend meetings regularly as a voting member and contribute to discussions about WEC, AI, the English, Writing, and Cultural Studies Dept.'s scaffolded core writing program, issues of equity for students and faculty, and core reform.
FYE Subcommittee: I attend meetings regularly and contribute to discussions about the first-year seminar pilot instated last fall.
WILD Committee: I worked with 3 adjuncts to compile data from peer institutions on information literacy approaches to writing in the disciplines (WID) and began to develop resources for teaching WID across diverse content specializations.
Accessibility Committee: I oversaw the curation of an accessibility toolkit with 4 adjuncts intended to help our department go beyond ADA/WCAG compliance in instructional materials, pedagogy, and use of sensory spaces.
Search Committees: I served on 1 search committee that resulted in the hire of an Assistant Professor with expertise in rhetorical theory, oral history, and academic literacies.
Writing Awards: With Dr. Rob Mundy, I coordinated the annual PLV Writing Awards from 2021-24, which celebrates writing and writing pedagogy across the university and is well-attended by students, parents, and faculty, including standardizing posters, designing programs, creating certificates, and assisting with event logistics.
"Pandemics and Public Health" Informational Resource and Course Policy: I authored and regularly update an open-access guide to the ongoing pandemic — along with other actively circulating infectious diseases — condensing salient information about predominant strains, symptoms, post-viral conditions, and affordable and appropriate prophylactic measure — for classroom use.
"Writing with(out) AI" Position Statement: I authored an expanded version of the WEC statement focusing on AI refusal — a disciplinary, ethical response to GenAI technologies in writing studies — which was shared at Pace and in other university LibGuides.
#LandBack Acknowledgment. I authored a publicly available land acknowledgment emphasizing material commitment towards rematriation and the intertwined nature of Indigenous resistance in the U.S. and land-based, anti-colonial movements abroad.
On Genre: I authored a position statement rationalizing interdisciplinary, transgenre work.
Equitable Labor Statement for Faculty: I authored a labor statement to accompany labor-based grading contract materials disseminated to core writing faculty.
Quickstart Guides: I drafted technical quickstart guides to onboard students and faculty.
Portfolio Evaluation: I evaluated portfolios and placement exams for the FYE London and Pace Online programs.
ENG Placement Exam: Prior to the recent implementation of self-placement, I participated in annual ENG placement exam scoring.
Online Course Management Assessment: In my NTT position, I volunteered to assess online courses, with attention to best practices in digital pedagogy.
Governance and Event Attendance: I regularly attend Dyson Faculty Council and Westchester Faculty Council meetings, and I attended 1 commencement, 1 open house, 1 admitted student day (virtually), and I delivered 2 degree/combined degree presentations. I also attended Pace University’s Teaching Techniques Seminar after I was hired in 2018.
Recommendations: I wrote 8 recommendation letters for student internships, jobs, and graduate school admissions, and 1 for faculty promotion.

External Service

Committee on Disability Issues in College Composition (CDICC): I assist in monitoring access issues and communicating access needs to CCCC and currently serve on the subcommittee for revising CCCC’s position statement on policy and best practices for disability studies in composition.
Technology Innovator Award: I reviewed 7 applications.
Disability in College Composition Travel Awards: I reviewed 24 applications during a three-year term.
Kairos Awards for Graduate Students/NTT Faculty: I reviewed 8 applications.
Hawisher & Selfe Caring for the Future Award: I reviewed 3 applications.
2023 Computers and Writing (C&W) Organizing Committee: I provided feedback on 1 conference proposal that required additional review.
Watson Conference Consultant: I was informally consulted regarding accessible modalities for Watson 2024, which has since been praised as a model of access.
"Carework and Writing During COVID": I coedited a two-part special issue in JOMR — reviewing, providing feedback on, access auditing, and copyediting 144 submissions — expanding the contours of acceptable publications to include multimodal mess and enabling scholars disproportionately impacted by the pandemic to gain CV lines for job security, promotion, and/or tenure. The special issues were praised by the rhetoric and composition community and have been cited in work on academic reform.
Social Media Manager of Kairos: With my co-manager, I circulate calls for papers, promote new issues, circulate calls to action, and engage with the computers and writing community online. I also created and maintain the staff Discord server.
JOMR Outreach Editor: I promote new issues and identify potential contributors for future issues.
WAC Clearinghouse #Writing Series Editorial Board: As a member of the editorial board, I review proposals and manuscripts for the new #writing series as needed.
Manuscript Reviews: On an ad hoc basis, I conducted manuscript reviews: 1 for Capacious; 1 for Spark; 1 for C&W 2024 Proceedings; and 1 for Cogent Arts & Humanities. Since reviewer scarcity has disrupted academic publication since the beginning of the pandemic, I view this labor as critical service to the profession.
Mentoring: I have mentored disabled graduate students, emerging scholars, and early career scholars in the computers and writing community.
Ad Hoc Volunteer Support: I volunteered to staff CCCC's tables for nextGEN (a listserv for graduate students in writing and rhetoric) and the Access Action Hub in 2019.
Professional Organizations: I am affiliated with the National Council of Teachers of English, Society for the Study of Affect, Alliance for Refusing Generative Artificial Intelligence, and the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine. I was recently inducted into Phi Beta Kappa (Dartmouth chapter) as an honorary member.
Professional Development: I attended 4 webinars and 1 conference to deepen my knowledge of and engagement with conference, event, and classroom accessibility; AI refusal; and autoethnography and associated qualitative methodologies: "Scaling collective access: From your presentation to the field" (Webinar); "Androids, spirits and chatbots: Historicizing AI writing" (Webinar); "The conversations we should be having about Generative AI." (Webinar); "Everything I need to know about ChatGPT, I learned from my students" (Webinar); "International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (Conference)

The impact of my external service has been recognized with two prestigious awards. Along with my coeditors, I received the 2023 Computers and Composition Michelle Kendrick Award for Outstanding Digital Production/Scholarship for our two-part special issue in JOMR on "Carework and Writing During COVID." This editorial labor constitutes service in that we lowered barriers to publication and created space for work by scholars disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, simultaneously challenging academia's mandate of hyperproductivity and gatekeeping around requirements for doctoral dissertations, contract renewal, promotion, and tenure. I also received the 2023 Technology Innovator Award from the College Composition and Communication Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication (7Cs); one of the highest awards given by the computers and writing community, this award acknowledges a body of work that challenges disciplinary assumptions and redefines what digital rhetoric can do. The award explicitly honors candidates who frequently mentor new members of the computers and writing community and whose work significantly helps others engage in computer-mediated composing, learning, and teaching.

I understand my advocacy work as both public service and service to the profession, as it emerges out of and aligns with the diasporic-disabled frameworks I bring to all areas of my work.

I regularly share my experiences and "lifehacks" online as an Eelam Tamil American woman with complex chronic illnesses in higher education:

I participate annually in MEAction’s #MillionsMissing Day of Action on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and my personal website.
I share my experiences as a fibromyalgic WOC in the clinic and the academy during National Pain Advocacy Month.
I amplify disability justice movements online, ranging from information on voting in pursuit of health equity, fundraisers, mutual aid, and other material resources.
I have distributed and participated in calls for action against the criminalization of mask bans in New York and other states where similar legislation has been proposed.
I attended “Advancing ME/CFS research: Identifying targets for intervention and learning from Long COVID,” a National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases-supported conference held in 2023 on behalf of the National Institute of Health Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Working Group.
I frequently circulate Tamil genocide recognition efforts and engage with and amplify knowledge-building social media threads about Eelam Tamil history and culture and linguistic injustice in Sri Lanka.

In the interest of serving my professional and personal communities, I frequently transform my materials into open-access templates that I make publicly available on my personal website, including position statements and classroom policies. I am currently finalizing a medical binder template tailored to the experiences of multiply marginalized and underrepresented people in the biomedical complex, as well as a template for requesting academic accommodations for complex chronic illnesses.

Finally, I have served the university, the profession, and the public in ways that are not typically factored into hiring, promotion, or tenure but feel equivalent to accomplishments included on a CV: That I have authored or significantly contributed to first drafts of departmental or field-wide materials, often at a moment's notice. That I write recommendation letters for students and colleagues and review manuscripts whenever I am asked. That I created a peer mentoring group for NTT faculty in my department and established a writing routine with a colleague to focus on passion projects. That I support members of the field during racist, ableist, sexist, and elitist discussions in fraught professional forums online. That, despite my energy-impairing chronic illnesses, I consistently hold space for disabled and nondisabled people who are navigating health challenges, sharing my experiences, strategies, templates, and other helpful resources. That I have disrupted the narrative of inevitability surrounding AI for Pace faculty, many of whom have privately thanked me for providing alternative approaches. That I transform theory into praxis through human rights and disability justice activism. That I demonstrate my commitment to this praxis by infusing my diasporic-disabled orientations to writing, research, teaching, and service into the very documents you are reading right now. That I never wavered in my resolve, despite my precarity, to work toward social justice reforms in and out of the university. That I did not wait for tenure to do the risky work this dossier describes.

My diasporic-disabled praxis is intrinsically community-first, emphasizing relationality, mutuality, solidarity, and meaningful connection. Academia undermines these paradigms by overvaluing speed, quantifiable work output, temporal inflexibility — from administrative deadlines to tenure clocks — and upholding exploitative expectations around mentoring and service, particularly for WOC faculty. My service roles have enabled me to work toward redressing these issues in my fields, helped me become a well-rounded faculty member, and better established me in communities of practice as well as communities of theory. I am grateful for these opportunities to give back to my professional organizations and to challenge oppression in higher education and society.