Colonel Rob McDonald joined the VMI faculty in 1992. While serving as Associate Dean of the Faculty since 2001, he has continued to teach as a professor of English and fine arts. Recent offerings include Southern literature, creative writing (nonfiction), and a special seminar鈥攄eveloped in collaboration with cadets鈥攖itled Text + Image.
Colonel McDonald is a widely published scholar whose books include聽Reading Erskine Caldwell: New Essays;听Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons聽(ed. with Christina Russell McDonald);听Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism聽(edited with Linda Rohrer Paige);听Erskine Caldwell: Selected Letters, 1929-1955;听The Critical Response to Erskine Caldwell; and聽Teaching Composition in the 90s: Sites of Contention聽(edited with Christina G. Russell). From 2005-2015, he served as editor of of the journal聽Studies in American Culture.
For more than a decade, Colonel McDonald has been exploring聽聽as a creative extension of his academic interests in the literature and culture of the South. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and book publications.
Colonel McDonald鈥檚 photographs are in the collection of numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. In 2013, he became the Institute鈥檚 first recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2019, he received a professional fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
VMI has recognized Colonel McDonald with several awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award (1997), the Matthew Fontaine Maury Award for Excellence in Faculty Research (1998), the VMI Distinguished Teaching Award (2001), and the Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr. Award for Undergraduate Research (2009 and 2010).
In 2007, the Superintendent presented Colonel McDonald with the VMI Achievement Medal in recognition of his contributions to the Institute.