You’re invited to apply for an AWAC-connected workshop at the 2026 Watson Conference, which will take place November 5–7 in Louisville, KY. The workshop, “Leading From Our Expertise: Writing Studies and Institutional AI Decision-Making,” will be co-facilitated by Crystal Fodrey, Kristi Girdharry, Magdelyn Hammond Helwig, and Marit MacArthur.

This intimate, intensive workshop is designed for WPAs, WAC/WID leaders, faculty involved in campus AI efforts, and other higher education leaders who want to examine how writing studies expertise is shaping, or being sidelined within, institutional AI decision-making. Participants will work collaboratively to document local contexts, analyze patterns across institutions, and develop shared frameworks for future leadership work, with the goal of laying groundwork for a collective publication focused on writing studies leadership in the age of AI.

Please see the full description below for details, including how to apply. We also encourage you to share this opportunity with colleagues across higher education who may be interested in contributing to these conversations, including faculty, staff, administrators, center directors, and others involved in institutional AI work.

Leading From Our Expertise: Writing Studies and Institutional AI Decision-Making

Co-Facilitators

• Crystal Fodrey, Haverford College
• Kristi Girdharry, Babson College
• Magdelyn Hammond Helwig, Furman University
• Marit MacArthur, University of California, Davis

Workshop Description

As colleges and universities rapidly develop policies and initiatives around generative AI,
writing studies and WAC/WID expertise is often unevenly represented in institutional
decision-making. In many cases, these conversations draw on technological, legal, or
administrative expertise while marginalizing or oversimplifying the knowledge long developed
within writing studies and WAC/WID work. At the same time, faculty within our field remain
deeply divided about AI itself: some view any institutional engagement as capitulation, while
others argue that disengagement cedes authority to voices less attuned to literacy, learning,
labor, and equity.

This two-day symposium brings together WPAs, WAC/WID leaders, and faculty involved in
campus AI efforts to examine how disciplinary knowledge about writing, learning, labor, and
equity is shaping—or being sidelined in—these conversations. Through structured
collaboration, participants will work collaboratively to document and analyze how writing
studies knowledge circulates—or fails to circulate—within institutional AI conversations and
developed shared frameworks for future leadership work. Asking a shared set of questions
during this workshop will lay the groundwork for a collective publication focused on writing
studies leadership in the age of AI:

1. How is writing studies expertise actually shaping AI decision-making across different
   institutional contexts?
2. How has the AWAC Statement on AI and Writing Across the Curriculum been
   taken up, adapted, resisted, or ignored across different institutional contexts, and to
   what effect?
3. What does it mean to lead from disciplinary knowledge at a moment when public
   narratives about AI and education often speak for us rather than with us?
4. Who is leading projects integrating AI into writing instruction, writing tutoring, etc., and
   how are such projects being received by faculty, students and administrators?
5. How can we create spaces for collective movement on AI that acknowledge principled
   refusal, ethical hesitation, and genuine uncertainty without allowing paralysis to set
   institutional agendas?

Application Process

In order to apply for a spot in this workshop, please submit a current CV and an 800–1000-
word statement that addresses the following questions:

• Why did you choose to apply for this seminar? Describe your interest in the topic at
  hand, and what you hope to get out of the seminar overall.
• Are you working on a publication or pedagogical project that aligns well with the
  seminar topic? If so, please describe that project.
• What qualifications do you bring to this seminar? What are the focal points of your
  research and teaching?
• What else should we know about you, your work, and your potential contributions
  to this seminar?

In answering these questions, you needn’t have an extensive CV or current book project to
draw upon. These questions are offered as guidelines to help you as you write your
statement, and as a general indication of what workshop facilitators are looking for while
reading applications. That said, applications will be read holistically, and participants will be
chosen based on what facilitators believe best fits the goals of the workshop.

Workshop Facilitators

Crystal Fodrey
Haverford College
Associate Professor and Director of the Writing Program; Outgoing AWAC Chair; Co-Author & Co-Integrating Editor of the AWAC Statement on AI and Writing Across the Curriculum

Kristi Girdharry
Babson College
Associate Teaching Professor; Writing Center Director; CCCC WAC Standing Group Chair; Co-Lead of The Generator (interdisciplinary AI lab); Co-Author & Co-Integrating Editor of the AWAC Statement on AI and Writing Across the Curriculum; Co-Author of Getting Learning Right: The Promise of Higher Education

Magdelyn Hammond Helwig
Furman University
Associate Professor and Writing Programs Director; Co-chair of Furman’s AI Strategy Task Force; AWAC
Executive Committee Member-at-Large; Contributor to the AWAC Statement on AI and Writing Across the Curriculum; Co-Lead for the Associated Colleges of the South’s AI Literacies Modular Lessons Working Group

Marit MacArthur
University of California, Davis
Continuing Lecturer, AI and Emerging Technologies Coordinator, The Writing Center; Principal Investigator, Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR); Co-Investigator, Center for AI and Experimental Futures; Faculty Mentor, AACU Institute on AI, Pedagogy and the Curriculum; Series editor on generative AI and writing in higher education, Critical AI