Dear AWAC Members,

We are seeking nominations for the AWAC positions listed below. Please nominate yourself or a colleague by the deadline Sunday, March 8 (at the end of the day in your part of the world) for the opportunity to work more closely with excellent colleagues! AWAC members elected to these positions will begin their duties July 1, 2026. To be elected, members must be in good standing. 

Executive Committee (EC) positions up for election

• Incoming Chair: This is a staggered three-year term, rotating through one-year terms as Incoming, Current, and Outgoing Chair. A successful incoming chair will generally be someone who (a) has accumulated experiences and professional connections in the profession that facilitate making informed decisions and identifying people and resources to carry out actions; (b) is at a career stage where they can carry out leadership duties with minimal consequences to their desired professional advancement; and (c) has been active in AWAC (e.g., as a committee chair or active member of a committee), or has demonstrated expertise in WAC efforts at a national or international scale.
• Secretary (three-year term with option to run for second consecutive term): The Secretary supports AWAC’s day-to-day continuity by documenting decisions and maintaining the organization’s records. In practice, this role includes preparing minutes for Executive Committee/Board meetings; circulating minutes to the EC for review and approval; and maintaining AWAC’s permanent files, archives, and Google Workspace (including shared drives and email accounts) so that institutional memory is preserved and accessible as leadership rotates. The Secretary works closely with the Chair and Treasurer and is a voting member of the Executive Committee. Nominations for this position require additional details. Please check out the full call for Secretary nominations here.  

Committee Chair positions up for election

Committee (co-)chairs plan agendas for and preside over committee meetings, collaborate with committee members on identifying and prioritizing committee activities, delegate responsibility for activities among committee members, report on those activities to the Executive Council and the Board, and maintain/distribute meeting minutes.  

Chairs may be nominated for a second consecutive term at the discretion of the EC. 

Please click on the corresponding links to learn more about each committee:

• Communications (two-year term)
• International Collaborations Co-Chair (one-year term)
• Partnerships Chair (two-year term)
• WAC-GO Chair (one-year term)

To the extent possible, we wish the board to reflect the diversity of AWAC membership, drawing from diverse institutional types, diverse types of faculty (e.g., WAC program administrators, tenure-line and contingent instructors, graduate students, faculty in the disciplines), diverse regions (in North America and internationally), and diverse backgrounds (race, gender, sexual orientation, ability).

For more about serving on the AWAC Executive Board (which includes the EC and Committee Chairs), please see Article V of the AWAC Bylaws.

Process

Please submit your (self-)nominations to AWAC Chair Crystal Fodrey at gro.noitaicossacaw@riahc with the subject line “AWAC Nomination” by the deadline Sunday, March 8, end of day.

For nominations of others, please submit the following as it relates to your colleague: 

1. Name
2. Institutional affiliation
3. Position you are nominating them for
4. Their contact information

For self-nominations, please submit the following:

1. Best contact information and institutional affiliation
2. The position you are seeking
3. Your bio (100 words)
4. A statement (100 words) on why you’d like to serve in the position. For example, what do you hope to accomplish in the position? What is your vision for AWAC? What perspective and/or experience would you bring to the board?

We will host the election on the AWAC website in mid March. Stay tuned for a follow-up announcement with the election link.

Sincerely,
The AWAC Executive Committee
Crystal Fodrey, Chair
Cristyn L. Elder, Past Chair
Heather Falconer, Incoming Chair
Paula Rosinski, Secretary
Laurie Pinkert, Treasurer
Magdelyn Hammond Helwig, Member-at-Large
Rachel Jasiczek, Member-at-Large

The 2025 AWAC elections are officially open! If you are an AWAC member, please take a few minutes to visit the elections page to vote. (You will need to have an up-to-date membership, and you will need to log in to the site).

The ballot will remain open until June 12.

Grant Recipients

• Lisa Sperber, Marit J. MacArthur, Sophia Minnillo, Nick Stillman, and Carl Whithaus.  Assessing the Impact of AI & Peer Feedback in Small Composition and Large Writing-Intensive Courses Across the Curriculum, University of California at Davis
• Vanessa Garcia Vasquez. Preserving a Culture of Writing: The Oregon State University WIC Archive, Oregon State University
• Elizabeth Caravella, Sara Riddick, Rich Shrivener, and Jason Tham. Investigating Virtual Reality and Immersive Composing Across the Disciplines. Texas Tech/York University/Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Proposal deadline April 30, 2024

The Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC) brings together the intellectual, human, political, and economic capital of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) community to better support and grow WAC as a global intellectual and pedagogical movement. AWAC promotes initiatives that support students’ writing across their academic careers, faculty development related to student writing and writing pedagogy, and research into writing across domains (e.g. disciplines, professions, communities, and academic levels) and transnationally. In the spirit of this mission, the AWAC Research Initiative Grants support research of benefit to the WAC community.

AWAC expects to award a small set of grants ranging from $1000 to $4000. 

We especially invite applications from graduate students, early career researchers, scholars working with underrepresented groups, and those involved in international collaborations.

Eligibility and Funding Restrictions

All award recipients must be United States citizens or residents (or hold a valid US work/study visa) at the time of the award. Recipients may not be members of the AWAC Executive Board or Proposal Review Panel at the time of award, nor have received funding from AWAC in the past two years. Research Initiative Grants are for the explicit purpose of conducting research in WAC-related areas. Funds may not be used for any partisan activity (political support, donations, creation of materials in support of candidates, etc.), or in lobbying activities. Doctoral students must be in good standing at an accredited institution. Applicants must be members of AWAC at time of submission.

Application Criteria and Procedures

AWAC invites proposals for research that can contribute to our understanding of contemporary issues related to writing in academic and disciplinary spaces. Effective proposals should convey the importance of this work for the WAC community, clearly identifying how it extends existing knowledge and scholarship, and the potential application of its findings. Proposals should also articulate how this research will be disseminated, once complete, and to whom it will be shared (i.e., scholarly and public).

Though particular focus areas and methodologies are open, AWAC encourages research that is of benefit to underrepresented communities, utilizes innovative methodologies, examines conditions of labor, or could otherwise expand the scope of knowledge in the WAC community. AWAC is especially interested in applications that make explicit contributions to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

Proposals should include:

1. A cover page that contains the title of the proposal, the name(s) and full contact information of the investigator(s), and, in the event of multiple investigators, the designation of a principal contact (maximum: 1 page).
2. A narrative of approximately 1,500 words (12-point font, 1-inch margins) that:
   1. Defines the project and clearly articulates the research questions and timeline
   2. Briefly articulates how the research is situated within the existing body of WAC knowledge and what gaps it is addressing
   3. Describes the methods and methodologies the project will draw on, showing methodological congruence with the research question(s). If working with human subjects, describes IRB status
   4. Describes the resources needed to complete the project and how this award will be used in meeting those resource-needs
   5. Identifies how the research will be disseminated when complete, to both public and scholarly communities
3. Detailed budget form with justifications for all expenses (sample provided). Please note that all funds must be used for direct costs only (i.e., research materials, participant incentives, software, transcription, travel to research sites). Indirect costs (such as conference travel, publication fees or indexing, institutional overhead, etc.) cannot be covered by this award. Compensation for research assistants is allowed if paid directly to assistant. Identify any additional funding sources already secured that will also support this research.
4. Include a current CV for all applicants. Doctoral students may wish to include information about coursework completed and contact information of the student’s advisor.

Awards are made to individuals, not institutions. Applicants must belong to AWAC at the time of proposal submission. There is no time requirement for research projects; a report will be required after one calendar year.

Proposals will be reviewed by the AWAC Research and Publications Committee. A summary report will be required after one year; a final report at the completion of the study. A précis of the research will be hosted on the AWAC website. 

If you have questions, please contact the Research & Publications Chairs (Tom Deans, Callie Messerschmidt) at gro.noitaicossACAW@snoitacilbuPCAWA

Proposals must be submitted by 11:59 PM, EST, on April 30, 2024, as a single email attachment—Word or PDF only to gro.noitaicossACAW@snoitacilbuPCAWA