Daniel Harrison

Dr. Dan Harrison has taught writing for twenty years (in total) at both the college and high school levels. He was one of the first to pioneer a campus writing center in the Middle East at Kuwait University in 2005. Nearly twenty years later, Dan established the first peer-to-peer high school writing center at a special education school that exclusively serves neurodivergent students. Dan’s coursework for a Masters in ESL and Ph.D. in Critical Literacy was completed at the University of Nevada, Reno in 2003 where he studied under literacy icons Shane Templeton and Donald Bear. His later Ph.D. work at Marywood University focused on Strategic Leadership and Administrative Studies in neurodiversity writing center studies. He currently teaches high school writing at New Vistas School in Lynchburg, Virginia. He is also an adjunct professor of English at the University of Lynchburg as well as helping lead the writing center at the Virginia University of Lynchburg (our local HBCU). Dan was born and raised in Indian Country and is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He is a registered tribal poet and on occasion works with local tribes in Virginia as an educational consultant. Dan is completing his Special Education endorsement this year at UL and is a certified UDL practitioner through Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Dan serves on the board for the Secondary School Writing Centers Association and is their newly appointed representative to serve on the International Writing Centers Association’s board. Additionally, Dan serves on the Diversity Committee under the Council for Exceptional Children, providing direct support and leadership to the Diversity Leadership Academy, which focuses on developing special education leaders. He has published several peer reviewed articles. Some can be found in the Mid-Atlantic Review, Journal of Peer Tutoring in Secondary Schools, The Writing Center Journal, and soon to be in the Journal of Teaching Disability Studies.