American University’s Writing Studies Program is housed within the English department and doesn’t really have its own major, per se, and while that might cause a bit of tension, Lacey has as often told me how AU’s WSP self-advocates at larers meetings, despite no one on the team being tenured, because of faculty having well-regarded positions and relationships.

I  asked Lacey about some of the political problems she faces and she noted the following recurring politics she deals with

• Arguing for additional term lines
  • “When I argue for additional lines, I mainly just present the numerical evidence that they’re necessary—and luckily, I (and the program) have enough credibility that I don’t need to argue further.”
•  Getting funding for their annual “Writer as Witness” summer reading program.
  • “With our Writer as Witness event, the main issue is that author’s speaker fees have gone up a lot, and so we sometimes fall short in being able to afford the person we want. That program has been in place over 20 years, and it’s a central part of the new-student experience, and so I’ve been able to get some additional money from different university offices through the importance of the program and my personal contacts.”

However, as noted before, arguing for various things isn’t as much of a problem for AU’s WSP faculty members. According to Shuster, “most writing  specialists are schooled in administration, quite literally, and take advantage of their expertise” for various reasons (331). For many on AU’s contingent faculty, this adroit ability comes out in meetings and negotiations on behalf of the writing program. This week, for instance, I learned that the staff has even written an article called “Building Our Own Bridges: A Case Study in Contingent Faculty Self-Advocacy” found in the collection Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition. Here, Lacey and her colleague Glenn Moomau argue that “contingent [meaning full-time, non-tenured] faculty in writing programs are among the best situated to advocate for contingent-faculty issues” and thus by holding higher positions of power in the general studies programs and advising roles, they can better advocate for themselves.

Wootton and Moomau recall their largest issue, saying:

As is the case in many institutions, we faced implicit and explicit barriers to full participation as faculty in the department and university. But one of our biggest barriers was our own timidity, our sense that we were neither qualified nor welcome to engage in the larger work of the university. So in order to exploit the changing conditions of the university, we had to overcome that timidity, educate ourselves in the workings of the university, and make inroads at every available opportunity (201-202)

 

In order to be more active and be taken more seriously, they go on to stress visibility as “reputation, alliances with tenure-line faculty, and participation in unit and university governance” (Wootton and Moomau 202). For instance, Lacey is not only a former Faculty Senate chair but also a current Faculty Trustee member. (In reports past, I’ve also mentioned how other faculty members hold positions of esteem such as Gen Ed coordinator and advising roles.)

She tells me the story about how this happened, saying that when they wrote the article in Contingency, they were getting a new CAS dean and there was a spot on the search committee. So Lacey ran and  “was elected (the advantages of large numbers of writing faculty!).  Then when the Faculty Manual changed (see the chapter), I was put onto the committee to help with implementation.  And then when a seat was created on the Faculty Senate for term-faculty representation, I was elected to that. And then I became Senate chair.  Being Senate chair and past chair means you also serve as a faculty trustee on the board.”

These roles came in handy during political “scandals” within the university. For example, Lacey tells me about how last year they invited Asao Inoue to campus to give talks and workshops to faculty and staff members across the campus. Then she says that it was picked up by a national right-wing media publication called College Fix.

She says that “these groups scan university events and programs, looking for something to react to; AU has been targeted before, so we’re likely on their radar. They found the description of the events on the web page of our Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning and used it as a supposed example of extreme political correctness, arguing that now even standard English is racist.  Much of the info was inaccurate and out of context.” However that is rarely an issue for media members looking for a story.

She goes on to say that the “article did get picked up elsewhere, including by Breitbart and by more legitimate conservative publications, such as the National Review” and notes that this is where it most likely became a problem because it was brought to the Board of Trustees’ attention. She notes, though, that her positions of authority and relationships with other trustees helped her smooth over this controversy, saying “I could have a good conversation with this trustee, explaining the situation, and because he knew me, I think he was more able to hear my explanation.”

While Crowley notes that the WPA is the “velcro professor” where negative outcomes of WPA work “stick” to the WPA in charge (277), this effect seems to be lessened by Lacey’s status and well-cultivated friendships with board members, the chancellor, trustees, etc. However, Lacey has advice for a WPA does not have these positions of authority:

For someone who doesn’t have that, I think they would need to very quickly and strategically form relationships. It might be less organic than my experience, but you would want to find out, for example, whom you could contact directly and who would require the “chain of command” to be followed.  It’s always a learning experience because situations change and people in the positions of power change.  We got a new provost last year, and I’d worked a lot with the former provost and knew him well—including how difficult he could be, but also where he would be supportive. So now I need to gradually build up a relationship with the new person.  And I do that by interacting with him when the occasion arises but also making a point of demonstrating why he should trust me and respect the writing program.

 

I really appreciated the advice Lacey gave and I hope I can use these networking tips in my own WPA work and advocacy in the future!

Works Cited

Crowley, Sharon. “How the Professional Lives of WPAs Would Change if FYC Were Elective.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart Brown. New York: Erlbaum, 2002. 219-232.

Fox, Tom, and Rita Malenczyk, “What Are Institutional Politics?” In Malenczyk, pp. 363-373..

Schuster, Charles. “The Politics of Writing Promotion.” The Allyn & Bacon Sourcebook for Writing Program Administrators. Ed. Irene Ward and WIlliam J. Carpenter. New York: Longman, 2002. 331-342.

Wooton, Lacey and Glenn Moomau. “Building Our Own Bridges: A Case Study in Contingent Faculty Self-Advocacy” in Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition, 199-211.

Wootton, Lacey. “Final WPA Report: Politics in WPA.” Received by Bethany Van Scooter, March 23 – April 2 , 2020.

A quick before this report begins: due to COVID-19 worries and difficulties communicating back and forth, I wasn’t able to communicate some of my curiosities well. I’m hoping to come back later and ask about how Lacey can expand, but since so many programs are stressed out in the move toward online coursework, I’m nervous myself to make any suggestions or ask further questions.

Hall notes that “composition is a contact zone to foster articulation programs” (317). Yet some of the key aspects of WPA work that Lacey notes is missing from American University’s everyday functions are their relationships to other offices. She notes that the “only formal collaboration is with IAP, the international-student program” mentioned in earlier posts. She elaborates, saying “We’re part of the AU Core, the university’s gen ed program, and our courses fulfill the ‘W1’ requirement for the Core.  And we’re part of the Dept. of Literature,” but overall “there are a few less-formal connections, though.  For example, I connect frequently with the First-year Experience office, since we teach primarily first-year students.”

For the connections with the IAP, Lacey notes that “IAP isn’t that essential to us as a program; in many ways, it’s peripheral.  It is beneficial to learn more about working with international students, but we are able to do that without IAP. It allowed us to hire more term faculty, so that’s a benefit.” I wonder, if the IAP isn’t essential, why did they partner in the beginning? After all, Lacey goes on to say that “IAP has often been a burden, both administratively and pedagogically.  But that’s just kind of the nature of that program.” I’m not sure the value of keeping a burdensome program such as the IAP on board if it’s going to be such a pain to deal with and doesn’t help more than it hurts, if that makes sense.

For looking to connect with other programs in the future, Lacey says, “I can see benefits to connecting more with the W2 courses—the writing-intensive courses that students take after College Writing.  That’s a tough one, though, because these are courses scattered across the university.  But I think that if we could communicate more, we could better support students’ transitions into other writing situations and transfer.” This led me to question what kinds of outreach they may have made already with these programs.

One of the most beneficial parts of the program, though, Lacey says, is that there are essentially no “turf” wars anymore. She says, “I’ve been lucky. Many years ago, before I was director, there was a move on the part of the business school to end first-year writing and move it into the disciplines.  The former director got them to review our program and even bring in an outside reviewer, and we did really well—which helped make the argument that we’re necessary.”

This made me wonder what it would have been like to assess the program so drastically like this in order to save the program and make sure that it was dubbed “necessary” in the eyes of the gen-ed AU Core programmers.

One program above others that I’m still waiting to hear back on about was the Writing Center. After all, in Moore and Strickland’s “Wearing Multiple Hats”, they note that they “have made a conscious effort to create a unified identity on campus, often doing faculty development workshops together and representing each other at various events,” and that they “have found the resulting strength and support to be beneficial to all aspects of [their] professional lives” (123).

Russell in his activity theory on writing instruction research illustrates both a need to teach writing in a new way for different genres as well as incorporate multiple ways of teaching writing, possibly through these campus connections, saying ” Learning to write means learning to write in the ways (genres) those in an activity system write (though one must remember that this is complicated by the fact that activity systems and their tools—including genres— are always in dialectical change)” (51). This illustrates a necessity for writing programs, no matter who or where, to interact with others in order to give students a fuller writing education as well as illustrate the necessity to students of communicating across disciplines and writing collaboratively.

Works Cited

Hall, Ann-Marie,  “Expanding the Community: A Comprehensive Look at Outreach and Articulation.”  The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart Brown. New York: Erlbaum, 2002. 315-330.

Moore, Jessie L., and Michael Strickland, “Wearing Multiple Hats: How Campus WPA Roles Can Inform Program-Specific Public Writing Designs.” Going Public: What Writing Programs Learn from Engagement, edited by Shirley K. Rose and Irwin Weiser. Utah State University Press, pp. 122-139.

Russell, D. (1995). Activity theory and its implications for writing instruction. In J. Petraglia (Ed.), Reconceiving writing, rethinking writing instruction (pp. 51-78). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Wootton, Lacey. “Report 7: Relationships to Other Offices, Programs, and Curricula.” Received by Bethany Van Scooter, March 5 , 2020.

According to Ed White, “it is both reasonable and responsible for administrators and public officials to inquire into the effectiveness of the writing instruction programs in which students are enrolled, particularly at two crucial transfer points: between high school and college, and between graduation and career development” (12). As writing is a more and more prevalently needed skill in the university, higher-ups will continue to support assessment and, for American University, they recently received a university grant to conduct a more in-depth assessment of their program.

Lacey explains that the process used to center on “collecting a random sample of papers and then evaluating them according to standards.” From there they would “choose a line from our program rubric (such as “research support”) and then evaluate the papers for that area.” A committee called “The Assessment Committee” (aptly named) would manage the rubric-based assessment work and then “prepare a report for the university’s assessment requirements and for the program.” This would would help Lacey and the PD committee organize faculty development sessions, so it seems like it was mostly formative.

I’m not sure they have the Assessment Committee still as Lacey didn’t mention it as part of the faculty development/service; however, they might have ramped it up for this new research.  She does note that before this new plan, she realized that the committee did a lot (if not too much) reading for the means of assessment before she was WPA. This illustrates what Gallagher calls a need for ” embrac[ing] writing assessment leadership” on Lacey’s part (32).

She explains the new method thusly:

“We are assessing one learning outcome per year (this is easier since we revised our learning outcomes), and we’re focusing on self-efficacy.  We did research into self-efficacy and learned that there’s correlation with ability, including in writing.  This year’s outcome centers on metacognition… We did a survey of all students in WRTG 100 in the first couple weeks of the semester (and got a very high response rate), with a survey tool that measured self-efficacy in metacognition (we relied on Bandura [1982] to develop the self-efficacy scale).”

As a quick note, it’s helpful to define what Bandura’s theory on self-efficacy is here. According to Bandura,  self-improvement and self-efficacy evolves from one’s ability to “execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations.” This idea of being able to learn, act accordingly, and execute actions on one’s own is a valuable “writing to learn” type of skill.

“Then, around the same time, we conducted some student focus groups to dig more deeply into the self-efficacy measures on the survey.  This semester, at the end of the semester, we’ll administer the same survey to all students in WRTG 101, and we’ll invite the same students back to the focus groups.  And we’ll collect some writing samples from those students.  (All of this is IRB approved, too.)”

While they don’t have a lot of data at this point (they just started this method), Lacey seems really excited about this research, and I’m excited for them!

She notes that all departments and programs are required to do assessment, but because the Writing Studies Program takes assessment more seriously than other departments, the Office of Institutional Research (OIR) gives them a bit more freedom. She says, “We don’t have narrow requirements for how to carry it out, and we exceed any requirements that exist.  So, for example, we asked for a year ‘off’ from the usual assessment reports and processes so we could pilot this new method, and that request was approved easily.”

This assessment, analyzing the first year writing courses based on programmatic learning outcomes, illustrates Anson’s point that, “course-level assessment can provide valuable information for broader program-related goals” and that’s precisely what AU’s writing program aims to do — enhance the overall program’s goals and outcomes, especially the consistency and fluency (11).

Lacey looks forward to this assessment and it sounds like this will be an interesting assessment trk to keep track of as the semester goes on. I believe it will take them a bit longer to finish collecting the data, though.

Works Cited

Anson, Chris M. “Assessment in Action: A Mobius Tale.” Assessment in Technical and Professional Communication. Ed. Margaret Hundleby and Jo Allen. Amityville, NY: Baywood, 2009. 3-15.

Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37(2), 122–147. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.37.2.122

Gallagher, Chris W., “What Do WPAs Need to Know about Writing Assessment? An Immodest Proposal.” WPA: The Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators 33.1/2 (2009): 29-45.

White, Edward M., et al. “Trends,” in Very Like a Whale: The Assessment of Writing Programs . Utah State UP, 2015, pp. 12-36.

Wootton, Lacey. “Report 6: Program Assessment.” Received by Bethany Van Scooter, February 19 – 28, 2020.

Dan Royer and Roger Gilles begin their chapter about what placement is by defining it as the following: “placement is the effort to get new students in the most appropriate beginning composition course… through placement we are trying to set our students up for success in our program” (Malenczyk 23). I didn’t think this would be a difficult concept to discuss, but the more I spoke with my WPA, the more confused I became. According to Lacey, American University does “[have] a placement process per se” (2019) for their first year writing program, but there are placement guidelines in place.

First off, no one is exempt from first year writing. I was pleased to hear this as schools are too often try to ease students out of college by exempting them from valuable classes like first year writing. Second, because a series of two courses (fall and spring) are required, students, even if they have credits for a section from AP, IB, or Dual-Enrollment programs, will still be required to take first year writing in some capacity.

According to the university credit guidelines:

8.1.3. “Students may not use Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), CLEP subject examinations, or other American University-approved exam credits to satisfy university-wide requirements. Exam credit may be used to determine which Written Communication and Information Literacy I and Quantitative Literacy I course(s) the student must complete.”

Additionally, there was a writing requirement that said students had to take first year writing within the first 30 credit hours at AU and if they didn’t, they would be barred from registration until they met that requirement. (8.12.2 and 8.12.2.a). Finally, one of the most commonly cited rules are as follows from the Academic Guidelines:

8.12.5.a. Earning a grade of “C” or better in WRTG-100 and WRTG-101, or in WRTG-102 and WRTG-103;

8.12.5.b. Scoring 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Test or scoring 5 or higher on the Higher Level International Baccalaureate Examination, and also earning a grade of “C” or better in WRTG-106;

Faculty Development: Semester-to-Semester Prep

Before the start of each fall semester, there’s an all-day semester preparatory training meeting with new and returning faculty learn about the goals of the program, the events for the semester, and gain extra professional development through various pedagogical training sessions and workshops.

In the morning, according to Lacey, “new faculty meet with the Mentoring Committee and me to go over things more relevant to new faculty—some logistical, some cultural” (Wootton, personal communication, 2019). At lunch returning faculty join new faculty and there’s assumedly bonding and discussion. After lunch, there are whole-group workshops and discussions about the program and changing pedagogy as a whole. Break-out sessions for different groups and types of instructors sometimes happen.

In the afternoon, the Mentoring Committee and WPA (Lacey) put on workshops and discussions they believe will satisfy the ever changing needs of new and returning faculty. Both term and adjunct faculty, new and returning, attend these sessions. In order to keep these needs of faculty for sessions in mind, Lacey noted that she and the Mentoring Committee “solicit ideas for the afternoon sessions, and we keep in mind topics of discussion in the program.  When we revised our learning outcomes and then our main rubric, we discussed those. We often have a breakout session related to our summer text. Last summer, we had one on visually creative assignment design.”

According to Willard-Traub:

“Seeing faculty development as a means of producing new knowledge, I propose, allows participants to challenge the received wisdom of their fields and to come to a more rhetorical understanding of their identities. The collaborative construction of new knowledge and an emerging understanding of identities as rhetorical can help both to de+ne and to expand the boundaries of disciplines and the identities of individual instructors” (435).

By encouraging both new and returning faculty, term and adjunct levels, to attend these workshops and PD sessions, the “collaborative construction of new knowledge” mentioned here are at work where the transfer of pedagogical knowledge is brought together into one room for others to learn.

Faculty Review: Teaching Portfolios and Requirements

As discussed in early posts, while adjunct faculty are reviewed each year by the WPA, term faculty submit portfolios to the department chair and writing studies committee with a cover memo reflecting on their semester and arguing for reappointment or promotion, their CV, an annual report (which is a university-standard form), and class materials (such as a syllabus, major assignments, and one student paper they’ve responded to and graded). The office adds in their student evaluations as well.

Lacey noted that if there are ever bad evals, some might add a paragraph to their file before the evals, but overall, the faculty avoid focusing or discussing evals whether or not that are particularly impressive. Additionally, the writing studies committee that reviews the portfolios acknowledge that they are “not the only audience for these memos [or portfolios, as] the audience extends to the Literature department chair, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Dean of Faculty.”

Thus the writing must be professional and concise, yet general enough for others outside of the program to understand. Because of this wide audience, Lacey notes that she as a WPA would “not advise a faculty member to focus on what went wrong.  If they received criticism in a previous memo, they should note how they addressed it.”

Outside-Departmental Professional Development: Getting the Campus Involved

As mentioned earlier, there is a Professional Developmental Committee within the Writing Studies program that focuses on professional (rather than classroom or pedagogical) development. For instance, the PD committee has done workshops on proposals for conferences, presenting, and getting published. Lacey noted that they also “handle the ‘reading groups’ that [are done] once a semester in the monthly Writing Studies Program meetings.” Each year, the PDC and WPA pick a theme and then once each semester there is a monthly reading meeting devoted to readings from the field related to that theme.

When I asked about any para-departmental PD sessions, Lacey noted that most faculty development is handled through the AU Core, “which oversees the writing-intensive courses in the disciplines.”  Though, she noted, they do collab with other departments using the university’s teaching and research center, such as during their August all-day training session. Lacey also noted that there is a full-day conference the Friday before the spring semester as well, similar to the August conference.

Training Graduate Students to Take on Faculty Positions

At AU, graduate students interested in pedagogy and composition instructor sign up for a composition theory course called LIT 730 which prepares students for the practicum semester where they shadow and teach with a term faculty member in a WRTG 101 course.

According to Shelley Reid, GTAs must be supported in formative and supervisory ways (Malenczyk 254) as well as have their education merged with the rest of the regular faculty’s regular professional development (251). Additionally, Reid lays out a helpful table (248) of ways to emphasize different types of learning in TA preparation.

Preparatory Course: LIT 730

Staying true to these ideals, especially since Lacey studied WPA work with Reid, AU has a course within graduate instructor preparation called “LIT 730, Teaching Composition: Theory, Research, Practice, Transfer” where students are set to “understand some of the core approaches of composition pedagogy; draw connections between theories and research in composition pedagogy to experience and practice; engage in metacognitive reflection about theory, research, and practice in composition pedagogy; learn basic elements of writing instruction, assignment design and response, and course design; and, learn the fundamentals of working with research in writing studies” (Wootton, syllabus, Fall 2019).

Each week, students incorporate valuable composition pedagogical theory into their practice as teachers where they review which theories of teaching they mesh with better. At the end of the semester, they put together an “exploratory project” where students “venture a premise or provocative question [about composition theory and pedagogy] and then work out that line of thought, engaging with research to develop your thinking and support your assertions.”

According to Stancliff and Goggin, this kind of theory-focused, reflective pedagogy, “encourages the kind of teaching habits that can sustain careers, offering not formulae but conceptual resources for approaching the complexity of bridging intellectual paradigms, always the situation of teaching” (12). Thus, reflective pedagogy and metacognitive planning must be valued at AU.

Additionally, throughout the semester, they write various blog posts on in-depth questions in the field. One that I have always found interested was the question “What is ‘good writing’?” where students are asked to define what makes writing good and how some characteristics in writing are valued more than others, etc.

Mentored Shadowing & Pedagogy Spring Practicum

After graduate students pass their pedagogy and theory course in the fall they can apply for the practicum course in the spring. During this course, according to Lacey, students:

• Participate in a WTRG 101 course for a full semester with a term faculty member, shadowing and teaching a few lessons
• Meet with their term faculty mentor regularly as well as with a group of other grad students to talk about their class and work on their portfolios
• Shadow grade some assignments in the WRTG 101 course
• Participate throughout the class as a TA

Additionally, students create a portfolio at the end of the practicum where they include a teaching statement, syllabus, example lesson plan, and a shadow-graded paper. At the end of the course, their mentor fills out a recommendation form for the student to continue as an adjunct faculty member. For some graduate students, they take this course before they graduate from their program, so it is an easier transition into an adjunct role after graduation.

Works Cited

Reid, E. Shelly. “What is TA Education?” in Malenczyk, pp. 197-210.

Stancliff, Michael, and Maureen Daly Goggin. “What’s Theorizing Got to Do with It? Teaching Theory as Resourceful Conflict and Reflection in TA Preparation.” WPA: The Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators 30.3 (2007): 11-28.

Willard-Traub, Margaret K. “Writing Program Administration and Faculty Professional Development: Which Faculty? What Development?” Pedagogy 8.3 (2008): 433-445.

Wootton, Lacey. “Report 4: Orientation & Professional Development.” Received by Bethany Van Scooter, February 11, 2020.