Cinda earned her PhD in English from the University of Iowa in 2001 and is a professor of instruction in Rhetoric, which is housed in the Communication Studies Department. She currently serves as the Director of General Education Rhetoric and has served as Interim DEO of the Rhetoric (2022-2026) and the Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies (2025-2026) Departments.

Her awards and recognition include: CLAS Administrative Fellow (2026-2027), CLAS's Dean's Distinguished Professor (2025 and 2026), Hubbard-Walder Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021), CLAS Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer (2015 and 2016), President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence (2015), CLAS Collegiate Teaching Award (2013), and International Advocate Award (2013-2014).

Since joining the Rhetoric faculty in 2001, Cinda has taught all of our General Education Rhetoric courses in-person and in synchronous and asynchronous online formats, taught the department's teaching practicum (PDP), tutored in the Writing and Speaking Centers, directed the Speaking Center for 10 years, and served as a teaching mentor to TAs and faculty in the Department.  

She has served on Faculty Senate, the Undergraduate Educational Policy and Curriculum Committee (UEPCC), as a member, Gen Ed Curriculum Committee (GECC) liaison, and secretary, the Collegiate Consulting Group (CCG), Faculty Assembly, as secretary, and the Writing and Communication Hub steering committee. She has also served on a number of teaching and learning focused Faculty Learning Communities and as a DEO peer mentor for DEOs through the Iowa Academic Leadership Academy (IALA).

Her scholarly interests include critical thinking, propaganda, hypertext fiction and theory, disjunctive poetry and prose, composition, speech, academic freedom, and the ethical and educational implications of AI in the humanities. 

Publications

• (2021). Faculty Bookshelf: Review of Melissa Febos’ Girlhood (2021). Rhetoric Notes, the UI Department of Rhetoric Newsletter Issue 5. https://clas.uiowa.edu/rhetoric/sites/clas.uiowa.edu.rhetoric/files/Rhetoric%20Newsletter%20Issue%205.pdf
• (2021). Refereed Review of Michael Joyce’s Capricorn, Venus Descendant: 50 Poems of Pandemos, Karkinos, & Eros. Heavy Feather Review: heavyfeatherreview.org. https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2022/07/04/capricorn-venus-descendant/
• (2015), Elkadi, Hani, author and illustrator, “Distinguished Lecturer Emphasizes Critical Thinking”, Iowa City Press-Citizen Writer’s Group. https://www.press-citizen.com/story/opinion/contributors/writers-group/2015/11/03/distinguished-lecturer-emphasizes-critical-thinking/75095608
• Panopticism, or Just Paying Attention? (2008)
• When Diversities Clash: Tutoring Students through Initially Inaccessible Texts (Purdue Writing Center, 2007)
• Invitations and Voices: Fostering Creative Expression (2008, Hampton Press)
• Professing Rhetoric: Proceedings of the 2000 Rhetoric Society of America Conference, co-editor (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002)
• "Separation vs. Solidarity: Building and Sustaining a Graduate Employee Union" (MMLA Journal, 2001)

view Curriculum Vitae