Shuvro Das: Cultivating authentic student voices in the classroom through practice
This piece was written in the spring of 2026 by GRAD 5144 (Communicating Science) student Margaret Donnan as part of an assignment to interview a classmate and write a news story about their research.
As a kid growing up in Bangladesh, Shuvro Das thought he was going to become some kind of scientist or, at least, a doctor. With several family members working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, he expected that he would follow in their footsteps and major in engineering, biology, chemistry, or medicine.
That plan shifted when he took an English class as a freshman in college, and he never really looked back.
“I got drawn to English Studies because I felt like it opened up a vast majority of language,” he explains, “and a wide variety of emotions that were bottled up back at that time.”
Das ended up majoring in English and continued pursuing his passion for the subject through two master’s degrees, one in Literature and Cultural Studies at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh and another in Rhetoric and Composition at Washington State University (WSU) in the United States.
A powerful conversation with a mentor, Julie Staggers, during his master’s degree at WSU prompted him to consider doing a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing Studies, a popular concentration under the discipline of English. Staggers assured him that the kind of research he wanted to do — research centered around uplifting the voices of marginalized and immigrant communities, including non-native English speakers, especially in college writing courses — was very important.
That conversation, along with the encouragement of other mentors and professors, especially his former thesis advisor at WSU, Wendy Olson, led him to apply for Ph.D. programs in Rhetoric and Writing Studies. He ended up choosing Virginia Tech, where he is currently researching how to make college writing courses, especially Technical and Professional Writing, more accessible, inclusive, and student-centered.
Courses like First-Year Writing, Writing from Research, and Technical Writing are taken by students from a wide range of backgrounds, and Das wants these students to feel supported in sharing their experiences through these courses. A portion of his research has involved talking to students who have taken or are currently taking First-Year Writing and Technical Writing. In these interviews, Das, now a third-year Ph.D. candidate, asks questions such as
“Where do you feel your voice is heard in the classroom?”
“Do you feel represented in the classroom?”
“Have you ever felt that your lived experience, your very presence, was not enough?”
“How can I make this classroom more accessible and inclusive for you?”
During these conversations, students have shared with Das that having him listen to their descriptions of their experiences reminded them that their experiences deserve space, that their voices carry weight, and that they belong in their educational journeys.
In addition to having value to the students, this research is also deeply personal for Das because of his status as an international student, teacher, and researcher. Often, he says, he has been in classrooms where the syllabi, pedagogy, or practices did not reflect his experience, presence, or stories. Navigating U.S. higher education is harder than it is given credit for, he has found, and through his research, he wants his students to feel included and represented.
As a rhetorician and writing instructor, Das works to cultivate a rhetoric of welcome and a sense of belonging in his students. One of his best teaching moments arrived, he says, when one of his students told him that his course was the first time they felt like they belonged in the classroom and that every student deserves a professor like him. When someone asks Das why he chose to teach English, he thinks of seemingly small but profoundly significant moments like these.
“This research is my little tribute to my younger self when I was still in my early 20s and figuring out how to do something meaningful with my life,” he reflects. “I hope my scholarship will have a positive impact in terms of how we teach. I hope a young person will look at me and say that this person has done something that has allowed me to be where I am now.”