Hocutt family: Deborah, Daniel, Sydney and Emily

My name is Daniel Hocutt. You may see that I list myself as “Daniel Hocutt, R’92, G’98” on our course site. That’s because I’m a UR graduate. I earned my BA in English in 1992 (until 1993, undergraduate students graduated from their residential college, with “R” standing for “Richmond College” and “W” standing for “Westhampton College”). I earned my MA in English in 1998 through what was then called the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (which was eliminated a couple of years later). I’ve worked in part-time or full-time capacities at UR since 1998, when I took on directorship of the Summer Residential Governor’s Schools for Humanities and Visual & Performing Arts hosted here on campus. I officially became the web manager for SPCS in 2001, and I’ve remained in that role since. I’ve taught as an adjunct professor of liberal arts since 2000, and I earned my PhD in English in 2019 from Old Dominion University.

My passion is teaching, while my day job is web and social media management. My doctoral work focuses on the rhetoric of algorithms, interrogating the extent to which algorithmic processes in online (and increasingly offline) environments influence and affect human choices. I’m deeply interested in the way technological and human activity intersect in online search and social media, in part because my day-to-day work engages me with these algorithm- and AI-centered processes.

I live in Hanover County with my wife and daughters. My older daughter is your age and starts at American University this fall, while my younger daughter is entering 11th grade at Hanover High School. Both played or play field hockey, and both hope to enter the medical field. Both of our daughters are adopted from China. We have one dog, Sadie, and she’s just a joy.