Constance Coiner, Ph.D. ’87

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Returning to UCLA for graduate work shortly after the birth of her daughter, Constance Coiner elected to carve out an individual Ph.D. program in literature, history and critical theory, a considerably more difficult, yet rewarding, path than the traditional. In choosing an interdisciplinary program, she performed an important service to graduate studies by encouraging other students to pursue similar courses. Coiner’s dissertation, already sought by publishers, is a powerful study of the relationship between modern women writers and the labor movement. Coiner is also coauthor of two booklets published by UCLA titled How to Write an Historical Essay and A Guide to Writing Sociology, both now required in many lower division courses. As a teacher, Coiner excels. Her solidly prepared lectures, delivered with style and enthusiastically received, enable her students to analyze rhetorical strategies and synthesize points of view. She is the recipient of some dozen major scholarships, fellowships and awards, among them an Alumni Association Graduate Distinguished Scholar Award and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Coiner is now a lecturer in the writing program. She brings distinction not only to herself, but also to her students, her teachers and her university.