Office Hours with John Gardner
Leonard Cassuto’s writing works to raise awareness of graduate education and the need to create student-centered and career-diverse education. Listen to how graduate programs can acknowledge student needs while providing quality education and training. He also shares his latest book on more accessible academic writing.
Leonard Cassuto wears many hats. He’s a professor of American literature at Fordham University, a well-known voice of reform in the graduate school world, and–encompassing all of these–he’s a writer. He has written or edited ten books on subjects such as race and slavery, detective stories, and of course graduate education. As a scholar and journalist, Len has written about science, music, and even sports. In more than a decade as a columnist on graduate education for The Chronicle of Higher Education (“The Graduate Adviser”), he has helped graduate schools think about how to change to meet the needs of changing students during exigent times. Len’s newest book, Academic Writing as if Readers Matter, takes in all of these pursuits. It’s a pithy and witty handbook filled with advice and examples from across the arts and sciences–and it’s also a hortatory call for academic writing that will build community with different kinds of readers, to serve the public good.
We cover a lot of ground in this podcast conversation with Len, from his early career as a scholar, his concerns as a higher ed reformer, and the path that has led to his new book.
Visit his website: www.lcassuto.com
