My work currently sits at the intersection of digital literacy, academic leadership, institutional change.
Academic Leadership
Through my work at Central Michigan University and as an educational consultant, I support departments, faculty, and programs through strategic planning, curriculum and assessment work, professional learning, and cross-campus collaboration. My recent leadership roles as department chair of Teacher and Special Education (2023-24) and Interim Associate Dean (2025-Present) have deepened my commitment to building strong academic units and PK-12 schools that serve students, faculty, and communities well.
Digital, Media, and AI Literacy
In my teaching, research, service, and consulting, I write and speak about how educators and academic leaders can integrate AI and digital literacy in responsible, practical, and human-centered ways. This includes attention to teaching, writing, governance, faculty learning, and the changing responsibilities of academic leadership.
Educator Preparation and Faculty Learning
Across my career, I have designed and facilitated professional learning for PK-12 educators, teacher educators, and university faculty through workshops, institutes, learning communities, grant-funded projects, and other collaborative initiatives.
About Dr. Troy Hicks
As I celebrate two decades of being online, as “hickstro” in nearly every spaces, Digital Writing, Digital Teaching remains my homepage and blog. I am Dr. Troy Hicks, a professor of English and education at Central Michigan University (CMU), where I have since January of 2025 also served as the Interim Associate Dean of the College of Education and Human Services.
Through my work, I explore the variety of issues related to teaching writing with new media for teachers and teacher educators across grade levels and subject areas. Since beginning my work in graduate school and through nearly two decades at CMU, I have led — and often co-led — programs through the National Writing Project (and our local site, the Chippewa River Writing Project), the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress’ Teaching with Primary Sources program, NEA Learning and Leadership Grants, internal CMU funding, Title II professional development grants, and other philanthropic funding, earning well over half a million dollars of outside funding across my career.
In short, I have facilitated tens of thousands of hours of professional learning for thousands of educators — from one-hour events to four-week summer institutes to year-long learning communities — as well as having experience teaching dozens of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral courses.
While I do try to update my ORCID, Academia, and Research Gate sites periodically, my Google Scholar page likely offers the most current updates on my research. If you need them, please find many versions of my bio, from super short to quite lengthy. I also offer a number of workshops, keynotes, and other professional learning sessions, and have been featured in many media outlets, podcasts, and webinars.
A few recent, openly-available items include the ELATE Position Statement “Exploring, Incorporating, and Questioning Generative Artificial Intelligence in English Teacher Education,” “The Importance of Digital Media Literacy,” and the book Better Practices: Exploring the Teaching of Writing in Online and Hybrid Spaces.
To get in touch, please contact me via email at hickstro at gmail.com, or fill out the contact form.
For more on the origin of my blog, please see my first “hello world” blog post from the summer of 2006.
This page was last updated on July 21, 2026.
Recent Writing
I use this site to think in public about teaching, literacy, AI, leadership, and the changing work of education. I am working to post more regularly so that the site reflects not only my archive, but also my current thinking and ongoing leadership work.
