Alex Ruskell
Associate Director of Academic Support

Prior to joining Roger Williams in July 2007, Associate Director Ruskell was the Director of the Academic Support Program at Southern New England School of Law, and before that, Associate Director of the Legal Writing Center at the University of Iowa College of Law. Before entering education, he practiced as a litigator in Boston, focusing on securities and corporate non-competition agreements. He has also served as General Counsel for a midsize publishing company, Associate for a large oil and gas firm, and as an Assistant in the Texas Attorney General’s Office of Environmental Crimes.

Associate Director Ruskell holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an A.L.M. in English from Harvard University, a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. in English from Washington and Lee University.

Associate Director Ruskell’s first jobs after college consisted of teaching in a Russian orphanage and counting otters for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Both of these resulted in several articles, printed in The Tampa Tribune and many other publications. In addition, according to a National Catholic Reporter review of his wife’s book, Fumbling, he is also “a saint.”

Associate Director Ruskell frequently presents at writing conferences and symposiums across the country, most recently at the 2006 AWP Conference in Austin, Texas, where he sat on a panel questioning the continuing vitality of the American novel.