I thank my thesis committee, Chad Thompson, linguist and committee chair, Stuart Blythe, rhetorician and chair of the graduate program, and Lewis Roberts, literary scholar, who never lost enthusiasm for the scholarship nor patience with the pace of its progress. As I had hoped, each posed questions and challenges that focused and deepened my perspective. I thank Leigh Westerfield, literary scholar, who as a theorist of women’s resistance to Nazism during World War II through writing offered so much more than writing feedback. Furthermore, I thank fellow writing center professionals at the IPFW Writing Center, especially Ruth Langhinrichs and Marjorie Treff, and in the East Central Writing Centers Association, especially Angela Huettl of Indiana University South Bend, all who helped me work out composing problems.

I thank Group, the women who have listened to me and who have shared their stories, support, intellectual rigor, and love for almost thirty years: Diane Strait Clough, Martha Bishop Ferguson, Susan Wenger, Terry Springer, Ginny Adams, Judith Smith, Beth Murphy Beams, and Susan Pape.

Most of all, I thank my immediate family, my husband Denis and children Jennifer, Katherine, Theresa, and Kevin, for their support and encouragement, and for their ability to revitalize me when I have been discouraged. I thank my sister Ellen, who has walked with me in grief and joy, and my brothers John, Tad, Michael, and Joseph, who have provided invaluable perspective to this writing. Moreover, I thank the older generation of my family, my parents Marjorie and John Arnold, both teachers for whom education represented the door to freedom, and my strong-willed uncle and aunts J. Robert Arnold, Esther Arnold, and Joan Arnold, who have all died since the inception of my master’s program. The joys created while caring for them—and their caring for me—sustain me to this day. I will never have sufficient words to express my gratitude for my family’s steadfast interest, faith, and pride in my endeavors and accomplishments.