Professor Elliott teaches first-year writing courses, including Rhetoric and Composition plus Rhetoric and Research. These courses are designed to give new AU students the writing skills they need — and hone the skills they already have — to be successful in their college coursework. He also helps recruit, teach, and oversee student writing tutors, while also a certified K-6 teacher in Indiana and teaches Language Arts methods to prospective secondary English teachers.

His research interests include the dynamics of first-year composition, digital rhetoric and composition studies of students with disabilities. As the father of three sons, the youngest of whom has autism, Elliott is deeply interested in issues of access and accommodation for all students. He enjoys presenting his work at regional and national conferences and being part of the dialogue of how best to serve all learners. His family is broadly interested in autism advocacy.

Elliott earned his B.A. from Purdue University and has two Master’s degrees from Ball State University, one in Elementary Education and another in Rhetoric and Composition. He began his career as a print journalist working in Minnesota, Northwest Indiana and suburban Washington, D.C., where he covered the then-Washington Redskins of the National Football League. He returned to Indiana and was a news and sports editor for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson before beginning graduate work in 2003. He later taught middle school Language Arts for four years prior to starting at AU as adjunct faculty in 2009. He joined the full-time faculty in 2012.

He lives in Fishers with his wife Karla, who is the associate pastor of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Carmel.