Teaching 

Finnegan teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetorical criticism, rhetorical theory, American public address, and visual politics. For a decade she served as Director of Oral and Written Communication (CMN 111-112), a general education composition/public speaking course that serves more than 650 first-year students per year. In 2006, she was awarded the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and the Campus Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from the University of Illinois. Most recently, she was the 2017 recipient of the Faculty Mentoring Award given by the Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of the National Communication Association.

Graduate Courses

Concepts in Visual Rhetoric (to be taught in Spring 2021)
The Problem of the Public 
Visual Politics of U.S. Public Culture 
Writing Rhetorical Histories (taught in Spring 2020)
Visual Rhetoric: Extended Case Study of Farm Security Administration Photography 
Rhetoric in Context 
Rhetorics of Sight, Sound, and Sense 
Writing in Graduate School 
Picturing Health (developing for Spring 2021 for HCOM program)

Undergraduate Courses

Visual Politics 
Photography and Public Life (taught in Fall 2019)
Rhetorical Criticism
Gender & Rhetoric 
History of Photography