The year was 2005 and the visionary grad students were Jeff Motter and Laura Stengrim.

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Laura, a student at University of Illinois, UC, had enrolled in Professor Bob Ivie's graduate seminar at Indiana University in Bloomington; at that time, IU and UI had an exchange program were graduate students could take classes at either institution, so Laura drove to Bloomington every week. While cross-enrolling at IUB, Laura met Jeff and the two became friends. 

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At one point during the semester, the pair thought it would be a good idea to bring the grads at IU and UI together for a day-long colloquium. "We had no idea if the faculty would want to joins us," Jeff recalled. But when Jeff approached the IU faculty and Laura the UI faculty, "the response was overwhelmingly positive. The faculty were just as excited about participating as the grad students." 

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Laura enrolled in Ivie's class during the fall semester of 2005, and the first MWW happened MLK weekend in 2006. For the first two years, in 2006 and 2007, Laura and Jeff named the program the "IU/UI Grad Student Colloquium." In 2008, the event was renamed to the "Midwest Winter Workshop," with the aim of including more universities in the Big 10. "The Big 10 was the natural organization break for [...] Rhetoric programs," Jeff explained. Jeff and Laura were motivated to preserve the intimate nature of the conference, rather than striving to "include everyone and do a big conference."

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And so, a beloved regional conference was founded. Taking place only in the Midwest, often in depths of winter, MWW has convened fourteen times since Jeff and Laura founded it in 2006. In February 2026, it'll convene for its 15th iteration, and though some things have changed, much of Jeff and Laura's original vision for the conference has been been maintained. Below, we offer a record of previous conference locations and dates, preserved sometimes only by an email thread, and elsewhere as a full program. Still, you can see there's some gaps in the record. If you can help fill in a missing piece of the archive, please contact Sarah Lawler at salawler@iu.edu. 

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The MWW origin story offered above was provided to the Bloomington conference organizers by Jeff Motter. Many of the programs were supplied by Professor Robert Terrill and/or Jeff Motter. 

 

Jeff Motter taught at Wabash College, Appalachian State, and University of Colorado, Boulder. Prior to grad school, Jeff was a political speech writer. In 2021, he transitioned away from academia to open his own speechwriting shop, which he continues today. He's available at jeffmotter@gmail.com. 

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Laura Stengrim is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Communication and the Founding Director of the Speakers Workshop at the University of Illinois, UC. She can be reached at stengrim@illinois.edu.