Individual Award

Denise Troutman, Ph.D., is an associate professor across the departments of writing, rhetoric and American cultures and linguistics, as well as a faculty affiliate with African American and African studies in the College of Arts and Letters. She teaches first-year writing and linguistics classes.

Troutman is the co-founder of Daughters of the Collective, a group that mentors middleschool-aged girls in Lansing to instill in them attributes of confidence, sisterhood, cultural pride, academic excellence, broader worldviews, community ownership and self-awareness. Her research is conducted at the intersection of linguistics and writing. Her published work focuses on voice, dialect, Black English and specifically on politeness norms and conventions.