Meet Nitya Pandey, Online Writing Coordinator

By Erinn Lyden

Nitya Pandey is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University. In her administrative position as an Online Writing Coordinator (OWC), she and her team oversee the Online Writing Instruction (OWI) certification course. The course is self-paced and module-based, available for master’s and doctoral students, and any other instructors who want to teach online English Composition courses.

“I have been blessed with a wonderful team,” Pandey says, referring to Antonio Valencia, master’s student in the Rhetoric and Composition program and English Associate Professor Michael Neal, who is also interim director of the College Composition Program. “Being able to learn the importance of teamwork, learning to put our heads together to figure out this process, creating multimodal instructional handouts, and constantly providing feedback to aspiring online instructors, is a major learning process.”

Those aspects in her role as an OWC and being a part of an online instruction community have helped her grow in her career as well as supported her dissertation work, which examines ethics of care, responding to student’s writing, and how to better humanize online writing instruction.

“We are so focused on the ‘how’ of education, that we sometimes forget the ‘why’ but it is sometimes the why that determines the how,” says Pandey, as she delves deeper into the field of writing instruction.

She believes many students think of online courses as more relaxed, but those classes, just like in-person writing classes, have their own share of rigor and expectations.

“Many students come in with a preconceived set of notions for an online version of the College Composition course, but in reality, it is rather similar to the in-person version, in terms of participation, deadlines, and workload,” she says.

Pandey is teaching an in-person class on Article and Essay Technique for the Spring 2022 semester as part of her graduate assistantship, in addition to her OWC role and writing her dissertation.

“Free time?” Pandey responds with a smile, saying she has become a stranger to leisure while being fully immersed in her doctoral degree commitments. “I’m joking. When the weather is nice, I like to take walks. I also enjoy cooking Nepalese food like rice and curry, and I occasionally like to bake.”

As a doctoral candidate, Instructor of Record, and OWC, Pandey’s life is all about multitasking. She says, “I’ve gotten used to changing hats, it is a part of life.” She, however, mentions the importance of having a schedule, maintaining structure, and blocking out time in her life for herself.

“It is very important to have a pause in between teaching, work, personal life, to be able to think and reflect,” Pandey says.

Writing is all about having a dialogue with yourself and others. Response is extremely important in a writing classroom, especially an online writing classroom. It is a major way students and instructors are able to connect.

— Nitya Pandey

Prior to enrolling in FSU’s Rhetoric and Composition doctorate program, Pandey earned dual bachelor’s degree in English and sociology in Kathmandu, Nepal. While in Nepal, Pandey also obtained her first master’s degree in English literature. She moved to the U.S. shortly after that and earned a second master’s in Professional Writing and Editing from West Virginia University.

Even during her time in Nepal, Pandey stayed academically engaged and spent her time as an educator and journalist. Pandey explains that writing is social and personal work. A writing degree involves lots of peer review and constructive criticism, which is much easier to receive when you have already established a connection with people in your learning environment.

“Writing is all about having a dialogue with yourself and others,” she says. “Response is extremely important in a writing classroom, especially an online writing classroom. It is a major way students and instructors are able to connect.”

It was Pandey’s wish to gain more experience in administration, which drew her to the position of an OWC in Summer 2021.

“The opportunity came to me at a time where I had already taken a graduate seminar on OWI and taught College Composition online,” she says. “I think one major challenge instructors face is that it can be isolating to teach online.”

She took the seminar course as a hybrid class with Associate Professor Michael Neal in the summer of 2019. This class eventually paved her pathway to the field of teaching writing online. One of the main reasons people are anxious to teach online is because they don’t understand technology, she says. Technology, however, "is just a medium. “

"We are not looking into anything fancy and difficult,” she points out. “We are simply using what we have to teach writing online. The focus is on writing, not technology.”

As an international student, Pandey explains, she is not able to visit Nepal to see friends and family as often as she would like to. Online space is a home for her and has been, even prior to the pandemic.

“If you live miles away from home, the online space becomes your home,” she says. “During the pandemic, I was literally living online. My professional life had shifted online, and a large part of my personal life had been online for so long.” Her professional life, currently, is slowly returning to face-to-face mode, while her personal life, to a great extent, remains virtual.

Still, in addition to her outside walks and her indoor cooking, Pandey finds time to reminisce about her personal interests. She has always enjoyed playing chess and was a good player when she was younger. She picked up a guitar at the age of 12 and since then has managed to learn two chords, she says, laughing. Regrettably, she also admits to an inability to sing.

What Pandey lacks musically, though, she makes up with her humor, stating that she can eat all percent levels of dark chocolate: “As long as it is actually chocolate, I’ll eat it.”

She also offers a tip she  follows in life.

"We should never be scared to learn because what prevents us from growing are our fears,” Pandey says. “So take all of the opportunities that come your way and never give up a chance to explore and experiment.”

Erinn Lyden is a junior who is majoring in English-Editing, Writing, and Media, with a minor in Communication and a certificate in Multicultural Marketing Communication.

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