Amy C. Kimme Hea

Amy C. Kimme Hea is Associate Dean for Instruction in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. In this role, Dr. Kimme Hea is responsible for curriculum review and assessment, student enrollment management, student recruitment and retention, undergraduate advising, and student engagement. She leads the Undergraduate Council in SBS and serves on campus-wide committees including CAAC and UWGEC. With the support of the Dean’s Office instructional team, Dr. Kimme Hea coordinates projects to support student learning, teacher development, and curriculum design and delivery in SBS and across the University of Arizona.

After completing her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition at Purdue University in 2001, Dr. Amy C. Kimme Hea joined the graduate faculty in the Rhetoric, Composition, and Teaching of English Program in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. In addition to her faculty position, Dr. Kimme Hea served for over ten years as an administrator in the University of Arizona Writing Program (Associate Director 2004-2012 and Director 2012-2015). One highlight of her work as Director of the UA Writing Program was launching a five-year longitudinal study of University of Arizona student writers (with co-PI Dr. Aimee C. Mapes). Funded by support from National Council of Teachers of English and Council of Writing Program Administrators, this ongoing study follows a cohort of UA students through their academic careers and one year post-UA to understand their metacognitive and affective relations to writing and literacy. Dr. Kimme Hea has published research in composition studies, computers and composition, and professional and technical communication on new media, hypertext theory, spatial rhetoric, assessment, and service learning. Her 2009 collection Going Wireless: A Critical Exploration of Wireless and Mobile Technologies for Composition Teachers and Researchers was nominated for the Computers and Composition best book award, and her 2014 special issue of Technical Communication Quarterly on social media is the most widely read in that venue. Dr. Kimme Hea has also published essays in edited collections and peer-reviewed journals in her field, and she is an editorial review board member for Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy and Writing Commons.

Dr. Kimme Hea has strong commitments to teaching and service. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in writing, rhetoric, technology studies, and professional and technical communication, and she has won recognition for her excellence in teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Kimme Hea currently holds two national executive positions, Executive Board Member for the Council of Writing Program Administrators and Associate Chair of Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition. At the University of Arizona, she served as a Faculty Fellow for Program Assessment (2011-2013) with the Office of Instruction and Assessment and participated as a Fellow with the Academic Leadership Institute (2011-2012).