When I entered the field of rhetoric and composition as a graduate student, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the entire field was considered a fairly narrow area within English studies. As the field exploded into a full-fledged discipline, we have seen important subareas of scholarship and practice grow to the point where those entering the field often identify a specific area of concentration, such as writing assessment, basic writing, advanced composition, or computers and writing. Although it has become almost impossible to keep up with all of these burgeoning subareas, I have tried diligently to maintain my interest in them while also continuing to focus on the main areas of my own expertise: writing across the curriculum (including a major devotion to faculty development); writing to learn; response to writing; writing assessment; the acquisition of literacy; and the preparation of writing teachers. I am, then, what we can now call a "generalist" in composition studies, with an abiding interest in all of it and a specific passion for several areas that drive my own work.