Council of Writing Program Administrators

Call for Proposals: 2007 WPA Conference

Preparing Ourselves & Our Programs: Readiness, Relevance, Relationships

Tempe Mission Palms Hotel
Tempe, Arizona
July 12-15, 2007
Deadline for proposals: March 1, 2007 Extended to March 12, 2007. The submission window is now closed.

The conference will begin Thursday evening, July 12, and continue through Sunday morning, July 15. We invite proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops, forums roundtables and other sessions addressing the conference theme, "Preparing Ourselves and Our Programs: Readiness, Relevance, Relationships."

We also invite attendees to prepare poster presentations or other exhibits of their programs' special initiatives, research projects, or signature areas.

To allow conference attendees to begin planning as soon as possible, review of proposals for individual presentations, concurrent session panels, roundtables, poster sessions, and multimedia presentations will begin on January 1. Proposals received after March 1 will be considered on a space-available basis only. The submission window is now closed.

The program will also include professional development mini-workshops on such topics as Preparing an Administrative Portfolio/WPA Promotion Case, Planning Writing Program Research, and Publishing Work in Writing Program Administration. Ask your department chair or dean for funding to attend these wonderful workshops!

Explanation of Conference Theme

WPA work occurs in multiple and intersecting spheres and arenas. Hence, these questions are meant to be generative, not exhaustive. We welcome your ideas and approaches!

*Readiness

• How can we prepare for constructive program assessment?
• How do we prepare for a significant role in accreditation reviews?
• How do we best prepare ourselves to write effective grant applications?
• How do we prepare for new writing program leadership through composing job descriptions, interviewing, and selecting candidates?
• How do we prepare ourselves and our graduate students to find WPA positions that are a "good fit"
• How do we ready ourselves to respond to local and national critiques of our work?
• How do we prepare to participate in public debates surrounding literacy and writing instruction?
• How can we position our programs to both generate and respond to new ideas and change?
• What new technologies must we learn and use to do our best work?
• How we keep the preparation we provide to our student and staff informed and effective?

*Relevance

• How can we make our writing programs relevant to world and local community issues and interests?
• How does understanding social and linguistic diversity make our work and programs more relevant?
• How do we demonstrate the relevance of writing program administration to faculty work in the 21st century?
• How do we prepare graduate students in ways that are most relevant to their future work?
• How can mid-career WPAs keep their work relevant?

*Relationships

• How can we form, strengthen, or improve our working relationships with:
  • --various units within our schools (e.g. learning disabilities, diversity);
  • --faculty across institutional types: secondary and post secondary, public and private, small and large, two year and four-year;
  • --adjunct and full-time faculty across the curriculum, as well as program and departmental colleagues;
• How has our work (and the decisions we have made) affected our relationships with colleagues, friends and family? What were the costs and gains?