Bio: Brad Jacobson is Assistant Professor of English at The University of Texas at El Paso, where he teaches courses in writing studies and English education. His research focuses on student experiences writing across the high school to college transition and writing teacher education, and his work has appeared in Writing Program Administration, Currents in Teaching and Learning, and the Journal of Writing Assessment. In addition to his membership in AWAC, Brad is affiliated with CCC, NCTE, NWP, and the Coalition for Community Writing.
Statement: As a scholar and teacher, I am committed to facilitating reciprocal research, teaching, and learning opportunities across K-16 and community contexts. I believe AWAC is uniquely positioned to contribute to such collaborations. As Chair of the Partnerships committee, I would work with the committee to solidify our developing partnership with NWP while seeking new partnerships with like-minded organizations. I look forward to creating and sustaining opportunities like sponsored panels and collaborative events with our partners in the coming years.
Bio: Alisa Russell is an Assistant Professor of English and WAC Director in the Writing Program. Her areas of interest include rhetorical genre studies, public writing, and WAC, and her research focuses on increasing community access through writing and writing innovations. Her work has appeared in journals such as Composition Forum, The WAC Journal, Across the Disciplines, and Pedagogy. Alisa is a founder of the WAC Graduate Organization, and she currently serves as Co-Chair of the WAC Summer Institute Committee for AWAC. She enjoys hiking and re-watching television series.
Statement: For the first institute in 2019, our planning group met every month for a year and half prior: We juggled registration, housing, and catering logistics; we balanced budgets; we designed a jam-packed agenda and materials; we worked closely with local hosts; etc. And then the institute arrived, and it was like magic. WAC faculty from vastly different institutions and programs had this three day gift dedicated to learning from one another, developing their next steps, reenvisioning their program possibilities, and building community. All that hard planning work paid off. I would be honored to continue facilitating and improving this event as one piece of AWAC’s networked vision, the best part of which is collaborating closely with colleagues across WAC.
Bio: Mandy is a third-year PhD Candidate and Graduate Assistant Director of WAC Programs at the Howe Center for Writing Excellence (HCWE). Previously, she served as Graduate Assistant Director of the Howe Center for Business Writing where she worked with students and faculty across Miami’s business school. Mandy currently serves as Chair of WAC-GO and is conducting her dissertation research on graduate student writing support through case study research with graduate faculty on how WAC programming can support graduate students in the moment and, over time, in making meaningful programmatic change. She also is conducting research with the HCWE WAC team on innovative teaching of writing across disciplines.
Statement: As current Chair of the WAC-Graduate Organization (WAC-GO), I hope to bring more graduate student involvement in AWAC activities and membership in this role as WAC-GO AWAC chair. Specifically, I see overlap in some of WAC-GO’s research and mentoring plans and ongoing AWAC initiatives that could lead to beneficial partnerships (e.g., I could see WAC-GO members joining AWAC writing groups). WAC-GO is dedicated to connecting graduate students interested in WAC work with scholars and practitioners in the field. I would work to provide graduate students with such opportunities by learning more about and relaying the work of AWAC and its various committees.
Bio: Heather is an Assistant Professor of Writing and WAC Coordinator at Curry College. Her research focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion in disciplinary spaces (particularly STEM), and has focused her time with the Research and Publications Committee (first as Chair, then as Co-Chair) on planning opportunities to support scholars at all stages of research.
Bio: Christopher currently works as Acting Director of University Writing at Auburn University, where he helps faculty integrate high impact practices into their courses and leads professional development for the writing center staff. His research on WAC, rhetorical genre theory, writing program administration, and threshold concepts has appeared in Across the Disciplines, the WAC Journal, Double Helix, Prompt, and Composition Forum. He served on the IWAC 2018 planning committee and currently chairs the CCCC WAC Standing Group. As a founding member of AWAC, he participated in the organization’s planning group, and he is interim co-chair of the AWAC Research and Publications committee.
Joint Statement: As co-chairs of the Research and Publications Committee, Drs. Basgier and Falconer intend to continue our successful initiatives, including virtual writing groups, awards for excellent publications, and support for cross-organizational presentations with the AAC&U and others. We also plan to continue developing grants to support WAC/WID research. Finally, we plan to collaborate with WAC-GO on a survey to understand the current level of preparation graduate students receive in WAC theory and practice, with the goal of making recommendations to AWAC and the discipline in general.
Bio: Amy Cicchino is Associate Director of University Writing at Auburn University. At Auburn, she supports faculty development within the WAC program, leads the Graduate Writing Partners program, facilitates workshops related to writing and writing instruction, and is currently expanding online resources for writing across the curriculum. Her research takes up writing program administration, multimodal online instruction, and teacher professionalization. She is a member of the AWAC Mentoring Committee, an Executive Board At-Large member of the Global Society for Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE), and a member on the Association for Authentic, Experimental, Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL)’s Digital Ethics taskforce.
Bio: Lindsay Clark is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Sam Houston State University where she teaches business and managerial communication courses, directs the College’s Communication Lab, and serves as Co-Chair of the University Writing in the Disciplines Committee. Her research includes visual and multimodal communication, genre theory and pedagogy, and writing across the curriculum. She is a member of the AWAC Mentoring Committee and serves as the Secretary/Treasurer for the Association for Business Communication, Southwest Region.
Joint Statement: As Co-Chairs of the AWAC Mentoring Committee, we hope to grow the initiatives developed by the committee in the last year, including the AWAC Board of Consultants, the workshop series on WAC leadership and pedagogy, and an online repository for WAC resources in collaboration with the WAC Clearinghouse. Additionally, we hope to create new opportunities for conversation and mentorship. In looking forward to the return of the WAC Summer Institute and IWAC conference, we would like to develop opportunities for semi-structured horizontal mentorship in those spaces in addition to more flexible mentoring events that could take place online throughout the academic year.
Bio: Chris Anson is Distinguished University Professor, Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professor, and Director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program at North Carolina State University, where he works with faculty across the disciplines to enhance writing and speaking instruction. He has published 19 books and 140 articles and book chapters relating to writing, WAC, and WID, and has spoken widely across the U.S. and in 33 other countries. He is Past Chair of CCCC and Past President of the CWPA. He has received or participated as a co-principal investigator in over $2.1 million in grants. His full CV is at www.ansonica.net
Bio: Federico Navarro is an Associate Professor and the President of the Latin American Association of Writing Studies in Higher Education and Professional Contexts (ALES) and the Chief Editor of International Exchanges: Latin America Section, The WAC Clearinghouse, Colorado State University. He has published more than 100 research papers in 12 countries, including the Spanish edition of “Reference Guide to WAC” (2016).
Joint Statement: Since AWAC was created, we have co-chaired the International Collaborations Committee with a goal of exploring how AWAC could extend its reach to learn from and exchange with people in many countries and organizations. We focused on three projects: 1) developing international AWAC affiliates and partnering, for starters, with organizations in Europe and Latin America; 2) working with international WAC representatives to collectively document trends in WAC and WID worldwide; 3) creating AWAC panels in international conferences. It would be a pleasure to see these projects to fruition and to embark on new initiatives for internationalization that will enrich research and instructional innovation across countries and cultures.
Bio: Swan Kim is an associate professor of English and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) coordinator at Bronx Community College (BCC) at City University of New York (CUNY). She received her PhD in English at University of Virginia specializing in Asian American diaspora. She teaches courses in composition and ethnic American literature. She has been directing the WAC program at BCC since 2015, and serving as the departmental personnel and budget committee, member of the faculty senate, and one of the co-leaders for the CUNY-wide WAC Professional Development.
Bio: LaKeisha McClary is an assistant professor of Chemistry. She has spent 9 years teaching a writing-in-the disciples (WID) 2000-level chemistry laboratory course that explicitly teaches students how to write a science manuscript. Her writing assignment received the 2020 Best Assignment Award from the GW WID Program. LaKeisha received her PhD in Chemistry from The University of Arizona and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in chemistry education research at Miami University. She currently serves as the mentor for GW Posse 2 cohort, a leadership and merit based scholarship program aimed to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. She also is the inaugural Director of Undergraduate Studies in Chemistry.
Joint Statement: Participating in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee meetings through the pandemic, we found ourselves sharing the same vision for AWAC. We are both eager to bring what we learned in theory and practice over the years: Dr. McClary, as a seasoned instructor of WID in Chemistry and mentor of DEI initiatives, and Dr. Kim, as a WAC coordinator at a Hispanic Serving Institution and who has also specialized in Asian diaspora. As co-chairs of the DEI committee, we will collaboratively lead, support, and promote efforts to find creative, simple, and impactful ways to incorporate DEI into AWAC. Our goal is to work toward implementing DEI so that it does not become an add-on but an integral part of AWAC.
Bio: Paula Rosinski is a professor of English/Professional Writing & Rhetoric and Writing Across the University Director at Elon University. She led her university’s 5-year Writing Excellence Initiative (QEP), which sought to enhance the teaching and learning of academic, professional, and co-curricular writing for students, faculty, and staff. Her recent research focuses on the transfer of rhetorical knowledge and writing strategies between self-sponsored, academic, and professional contexts; the writing lives of alumni; reframing rhetorical theories and writing practices in multimodal environments; and Writing Center Fellows. She is currently co-leading Elon’s Writing Beyond the University multi-year, multi-institution research seminar.
Statement: I’m running for this position to support and connect colleagues across the country/world as they work to develop sustainable cultures of writing and infrastructures to support WAC on their own campus. I’m particularly interested in exploring/supporting what WAC means in the 21st century, as writing is increasingly visual, newer genres are emerging, and we’re learning more about writing transfer between academic and co-curricular, professional, and personal contexts. I see in this moment great opportunities for collaboratively designing multi-institutional faculty development and research projects, as a way to address these emerging issues and to continue supporting faculty, staff, and students/alumni.
Bio: I earned my doctorate in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy from The Ohio State University in 2020. Currently, I am a Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University East. My areas of scholarly interest include WAC/WID, writing center theory and practice, and composition pedagogy. My current research builds on my WID dissertation, which explores history and social work instructors’ writing-related expectations for their undergraduate students. One of my primary research goals is to uncover trends, patterns, and complexities in the writing-related expectations for undergraduates in a variety of disciplines. I pursue this avenue of inquiry with the aim of making implicit disciplinary writing expectations more explicit for students. Ideally, this research can help to reduce inadvertent gatekeeping into academic communities and to promote more just and equitable pedagogy.
Statement: As an early-career scholar, I want to connect with and contribute to the broader WAC/WID community of practice. As a member at large, I would hope both to share new ideas with like-minded scholars, as well as learn from established figures in the field. There are several areas in which I would like to see WAC/WID work expand. First, I would like to foster more collaborative partnerships with faculty across the disciplines, involving disciplinary instructors more directly in shaping WAC/WID scholarship and practice. Second, I would like to promote more mentorship and support for graduate students interested in WAC/WID as an area of inquiry. Finally, I would like to enhance WAC/WID initiatives at the undergraduate level, exploring new avenues to promote undergraduate engagement in WAC/WID work and study.
Bio: Sherri Craig is an Assistant Professor of Professional and Technical Writing at West Chester University where she specializes in teaching diversity and inclusion through business and non-profit writing courses. Much of her research centers upon the experiences of Black women in their academic and industry careers and their professionalization and mentorship. As a student organization advisor and a diversity and inclusion consultant, Sherri enjoys sharing her knowledge with others and being inspired by those around her. Her work can be found in WPA: Writing Program Administration and at SparkActivism.com.
Statement: As the former Chair of the AWAC Advocacy Committee, I have spent the last two years engaged in many conversations with the DEI committee about the relationships between Advocating for and with our AWAC members and supporting the organization’s commitment to inclusion and equity. As the member-at-large for the committee, I would be able to bring these ever-important issues to the forefront of our actions in the WAC community. As the member-at-large, I am most interested in offering my support and experience with diversity and inclusion to help the chair and members of the DEI committee.
Bio: Doug Hesse is Professor and Executive Director of Writing at the University of Denver, where he’s been named University Distinguished Scholar. He’s a past president of NCTE, chair of CCCC, president of CWPA, and editor of Writing Program Administration. Starting at Illinois State in the late eighties, he directed a large writing program that included a WAC effort. His current role includes directing a writing intensive general education requirement that has involved some 250 faculty in three-day seminars, plus ongoing support. His 75+ articles/chapters focus on program development and leadership, writing pedagogy, creative nonfiction, and professional issues in writing studies.
Statement: In addition to ongoing work supporting writing-to-learn and writing in the disciplines, AWAC should encourage research, practices, and policies toward four challenges. We must better understand (1) how conditions for WAC will differ in post-pandemic institutions; (2) how increasingly multimodal-by-default texts are effectively and ethically produced and circulated; (3) how writers with diverse identities, pasts, and futures negotiate academic languages; (4) how WAC might better connect with discourse beyond the academy. Current events demonstrate why publics need information and ideas grounded in scientific, social, and humanistic knowledge. In addition to cognitive growth and epistemological savvy, WAC should foster writers for a world that surely needs expertise.
Bio: Crystal N. Fodrey is director of writing at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA. Her recent scholarship on writing pedagogy and curriculum development has appeared in Across the Disciplines, Composition Forum, and Implementing Multimodal Curricula and Programs and is forthcoming in multiple edited collections on WEC, faculty development, and multimodal writing. In addition to leading first-year writing and WEC efforts at Moravian, she is currently working with colleagues to develop a conceptual framework for promoting digital multimodal teaching praxes across the disciplines and co-leading a team of undergraduate researchers in studying the role of multimodality across the curriculum.
Statement: As a leader in AWAC, I will strive to promote and embody rhetorical listening, reflection, and flexibility in order to understand and represent the diverse needs of writers, writing faculty, and WAC program administrators across myriad situational ecologies. My vision is for AWAC to expand our influence through strategic and effective communication and outreach efforts, promote faculty development that highlights inclusive assignment design and assessment practices, promote the possibility of both the WEC model and designing college curricula for vertical writing transfer, explore the roles of digital multimodal composing and media literacy in a WAC context, and celebrate innovative work.
Bio: Beginning in 1993, I have been a member of the English department at the University of St. Thomas, serving first as Director of the interdisciplinary Academic Development Program for underprepared students (in which I still teach each year) and then, since its inception in 2009, serving as Director of Writing Across the Curriculum. With a supportive WAC Committee as well as Chris Anson as a mentor and guide, I have weathered the early years of program development. After a WPA Program Review in 2019, UST-WAC is now an established, growing part of our curriculum, and larger university culture.
Statement: As a Member-at-Large, my primary goal would be to make sure the needs of our members are met as they work to build, maintain, and grow their WAC programs during these challenging times. In order to achieve this goal, I would familiarize myself with the work of the AWAC committees and listen carefully to the needs expressed by our membership. As someone who has worked to build a WAC program over the past twelve years, I know how important it is to receive both practical and moral support; I will make sure our members receive these as well.
IWAC Graduate Student Travel Awards
/in NewsThe Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and WAC-GO is excited to announce four graduate student registration scholarshipsfor the upcoming International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference to be held June 3-6, 2020 at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO.
Only graduate students who are members of AWAC are eligible for these awards. Graduate students who are interested in AWAC membership should contact the Board (gro.noitaicossacaw@nimda) to inquire about the availability of sponsored graduate student memberships.
Applications are due April 1, 2020. More details about the scholarship are available here.
Call for IWAC 2022 Hosting Proposals Released
/in NewsThe IWAC Conference Committee invites proposals for hosting the 2022 International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference. The call can be found at https://iwac.colostate.edu/host/.
Proposals should contain relevant information that will help the committee decide why the IWAC conference should be hosted by your institution or a consortium of institutions that you have organized; whether the proposed location is convenient and affordable for international travelers; and whether the hosts have sufficient space, institutional support, and the resources to help run the conference.
Proposals are due April 1, 2020 and should be sent via email to moc.liamg@0202cawi. Proposers should be members of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum.
For additional information, contact Mike Palmquist, IWAC 2020 conference director, at moc.liamg@0202cawi.
The 2020 WAC Summer Institute still has spaces available!
/in NewsAttention AWAC members!
The 2020 WAC Summer Institute still has spaces available!
The institute will take place May 31 – June 3, 2020 (prior to the IWAC Conference), at Colorado State University.
Details about the 2020 WACSI can be found on our website.
The Institute’s primary goal will be to assist new and prospective leaders of WAC/WID or similar initiatives in the US and internationally in planning and developing their programs. The Institute will also support experienced directors who face new challenges or wish to expand, update, or revitalize their programs.
Email moc.liamg@etutitsnIremmuSCAWA with any questions you may have, and we hope to see you in Fort Collins!
2020 AWAC Annual Open Business Meeting via Zoom
/in NewsAll are welcome to attend the 2020 AWAC Annual Open Business Meeting, which will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, June 9, 3:30-5:00 pm EDT. At this meeting, the Executive Board will present the annual report and committees will lead small group discussions to share activities, ask for feedback, and gather ideas. AWAC members will be emailed a Zoom link; non-AWAC members are welcome and may register here to receive the Zoom link.
Call for AWAC-Sponsored Panel at EWCA (deadline: Jan 25, 2020)
/in NewsCall for Proposals
AWAC-Sponsored Panel, European Writing Centers Association Conference
Graz, Austria
July 8-11, 2020
The International Collaborations Committee of the Association for Writing
Across the Curriculum (/) is issuing a call for
proposals for an AWAC-sponsored panel at the European Writing Centers
Association conference to take place in Graz, Austria, from July 8-11, 2020.
Please see the EWCA conference website for more details and information about
the overall conference theme, “Writing Centers as Spaces of Empowerment”:
https://europeanwritingcenters-2020.uni-graz.at/en/
Writing Centers and WAC: Relationships Between Students and Faculty/Academic
Staff
The mission of writing centers typically supports both the improvement of
students’ writing projects and the more general enhancement of their writing
abilities through face-to-face and online tutorial consultations, workshops
and seminars, and visits to classes for brief presentations on tailored
topics. Indirectly, faculty/academic staff learn about students’ writing
challenges from these consultations and visits, and may adjust their own
assignment design or other aspects of their pedagogy from this knowledge. But
it is not usually in the main purview of writing centers to work
systematically and transformationally with faculty/academic staff across the
curriculum on deeper areas of writing support, such as the creation of
learning-based writing activities; support for the development of larger
projects such as the inclusion of student peer review or the scaffolding of
writing stages; or the development of clear, principled evaluation criteria.
Such faculty-development work is normally in the province of writing-across-
the-curriculum (WAC) or writing-in-the-disciplines (WID) programs, which are
designed to enhance writing pedagogy through the support and intervention of
the instructors themselves.
This panel will bring together scholar-educators to discuss current and
potential interconnections between student-facing writing centers and WAC/WID
programs, or potential expansions of writing centers to include significant
work with faculty/academic staff for their increased and enhanced involvement
in the development of their students’ discipline- or course/module-specific
writing abilities. In particular, we seek presentations that might address the
following questions, but these are by no means exhaustive:
· What role do writing centers play in the enhancement of discipline-based
faculty/academic staff to intervene in and support their own students’ writing
processes, activities, and development?
· How might or do existing WAC/WID programs partner effectively with writing
centers to help an institution develop a “culture” of writing rather than
locating writing support in specific units?
· How can writing centers create a more equitable balance between their own
student support and the support needed from instructors within specific
courses/modules?
· What theoretical and practical challenges do leaders of writing centers and
those who work in them face when they identify shortcomings in the way that
faculty/academic staff assign, support, or evaluate their students’ writing?
What programmatic efforts might work effectively between the writing center
and the instructors to help reduce these challenges?
Proposals can be theoretically or empirically driven and should:
· Be approximately 300 words
· Include a title for the presentation
· Clearly address the focus of the session
· Be grounded in existing literature relevant to the topic
· State potential or demonstrated significance for the field
· Be inquiry- and evidence-based
· Identify the speaker(s) and their affiliations
· Include contact information (email, phone, address) for the lead or solo proposer
· Include 3-5 keywords
Please note that the preferred language of the conference is English but that
in the interest of inclusivity, the EWCA welcomes those who would feel more
comfortable presenting in another language, in which case, please provide an
English translation of your proposal. Proposals will be evaluated by the co-
chairs of the International Collaborations Committee and a member of the EWCA
Board.
Please submit proposals as attached Word files via email, with the subject
line “AWAC-Sponsored Panel EWCA 2020,” NO LATER THAN JAN. 25, 2020, to:
Chris Anson: ude.uscn@nosna_sirhc
Federico Navarro: lc.hou@orravan
Upon acceptance, panelists must be AWAC members in good standing.
Announcing the AWAC Board of Consultants
/in NewsWe are
happy to announce the AWAC Board of Consultants!
The AWAC Board of Consultants are AWAC members who have expertise in WAC program administration and pedagogy, and have been vetted by the AWAC Mentoring Committee and AWAC Executive Committee. These consultants may be contacted with invitations to lead WAC workshops, review WAC programs, and promote WAC program development.
We thank the AWAC Members who applied to serve on the Consultant Board. We also thank the AWAC Mentoring Committee Chair Dan Melzer and members Lindsay Clark, Ming Fang, Jacqueline Kauza, Justin Nicholes, Mary McMullin-Light, Greer Murphy, Pam Childers, Tom Polk, and Amy Ciccino for their work in assembling this board.
Information
about the AWAC Board of Consultants may be found under “Resources” on the AWAC website.
Seeking Nominations for Incoming Chair
/in NewsAWAC will be holding an election for the position of Incoming Chair at the end of January. This is a three-year commitment, as this person would cycle into the Chair and Past Chair positions. To read more about the responsibilities of this position, see our bylaws, article 5.02. The term will start July 1, 2020.
You may nominate an AWAC member for this position by providing the nominee’s name and contact information. You may nominate yourself for this position by providing the following information:
Nominations and self-nominations are due by January 17, 2020. Nominees must be in good standing with AWAC. Nominations may be sent to AWAC Chair Michelle Cox at gro.noitaicossacaw@nimda.
AWAC is now certified as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization!
/in NewsOver the past three years, the AWAC Working Group and then the AWAC Executive Board worked diligently to certify AWAC as a 501(c)(3) organization, and on November 27, 2019, we received word that our application has been accepted!
This certification means that AWAC is recognized as a non-profit organization by the IRS, is exempt from federal income taxes, and is able to receive tax-deductible donations. This certification process was complicated, as it required many hours developing documents, meeting with a lawyer, scrutinizing forms, and learning legalese.
AWAC is indebted to Past Chair Jeff Galin for spearheading this process. Since December 2016, Jeff worked closely with the lawyer to first certify AWAC as a non-profit holding company in the State of Florida and then as a 501(c)(3) organization. Jeff kept the ball rolling for these three years, paying attention to every detail throughout the process, facilitating conversations within the AWAC Executive Board, and acting as a liaison with the lawyer. We thank you, Jeff!
Save-the-Date: 2020 WAC Summer Institute (Registration opens Dec. 16 @ 1:00 EST)
/in NewsREGISTER HERE
We are pleased to announce that the 2020 WAC Summer Institute will take place May 31 – June 3, 2020 (prior to the IWAC Conference), at Colorado State University.
Details about the 2020 WACSI can be found in this Save-the-Date and on our website.
The Institute’s primary goal will be to assist new and prospective leaders of WAC/WID or similar initiatives in the US and internationally in planning and developing their programs. The Institute will also support experienced directors who face new challenges or wish to expand, update, or revitalize their programs.
Registration will open on Monday, December 16, at 1:00 PM EST. The registration site link will go live on the WACSI website at that time.
Additionally, all WACSI alumni from the 2019 and 2020 institutes are invited to attend a special IWAC workshop on Thursday morning, June 4, covering WAC assessment and research. More details to come!
Email moc.liamg@etutitsnIremmuSCAWA with any questions you may have, and we hope to see you in Fort Collins!
AWAC members receive discount on IWAC registration
/in NewsRegistration has opened for the 2020 International Writing Across the Curriculum (IWAC) Conference. This conference will be held from June 3rd through June 6th on the campus of the Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.
AWAC members receive a $30 discount on registration. To learn more about the conference, visit the conference home page: https://iwac.colostate.edu/. To learn about registration, go to: https://iwac.colostate.edu/registration/.