Dr. Kathryn Rentz

Dr. Kathryn Rentz is a Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. She taught her first business writing class as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the early 1980s and has been teaching workplace writing ever since. She helped establish the University of Cincinnati’s professional writing program and has served as its coordinator. She has also won the English Department’s teaching award, directed the department’s graduate program, and helped direct the composition program.

Dr. Rentz’s affiliation with the Association for Business Communication goes back to her beginnings as a business writing teacher. She has performed many roles for the ABC, including serving on the board of directors and chairing the publications board. She served two terms as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Business Communication and was Interim Editor from 2000–2001, for which she won the Francis W. Weeks Award of Merit. In 2008 she won the ABC’s Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2011 she was elected Second Vice President for the association, and she will serve as its president in 2013–2014.

Dr. Rentz has published articles on business communication pedagogy and research in such journals as Business Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Business Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, and the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. She has participated in many professional meetings and seminars over the years and is always learning from her colleagues and her students.

Dr. Paula Lentz

Dr. Paula Lentz is an Associate Professor and Academic Program Director in the Department of Business Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She teaches Business Writing, Business Writing II, and Advanced Business Writing. She is also a developer and coordinator of the department’s Business Writing Fundamentals Program, which ensures that students have basic writing skills essential for success in their first business writing course. In addition, she chaired the College of Business’s Writing Task Force, which developed a college-wide policy for assessing students’ writing skills as part of their grade on any writing assignment in any business class.

Dr. Lentz is particularly interested in qualitative research that explores narratives and organizational cultures, genre theory, and writing pedagogy in online environments. She has published in such journals as Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, Wisconsin Business Education Association Journal, Equal Opportunities International, and Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. She has also presented her research at several national and regional conferences, including those of the Association for Business Communication and the Academy of Management.

Prior to becoming a full-time academic, she worked as a technical writer and publications editor. She continues to do freelance editing and provides consulting and writing services for several organizations. She received a BA from Coe College, an MA from UW–Eau Claire, and a PhD in Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota.