Council of Writing Program Administrators

Writing Program Administration and/as Learning

Denver Grand Hyatt Hotel
Denver, Colorado
July 10-13, 2008

Deadline for proposals: April 15, 2008 NOTE: Proposals submitted by the original deadline of 3/15/08 have already been reviewed and proposers notified. New proposals submitted by the final deadline will be reviewed in the weeks after that date.
Proposal Submission Form (log-in to view the form and submit a proposal)

The conference will begin Thursday evening, July 10, and continue through Sunday morning, July 13. We invite proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops, forums roundtables and other sessions addressing the conference theme, "Writing Program Administration and/as Learning."

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 occur on a rolling basis after February 15, with notifications also sent on that basis. Proposals received after March 15 will be considered on a space-available basis only.

Explanation of Conference Theme

Our goal is to examine WPAs as learners - as teachers – and as learned contributors to students’ lives, to knowledge, and to higher education. We will come together in Denver to work toward a better understanding of WPA work as an intellectual and a pedagogical activity with a rich and complicated history. I invite you to think about some of the following topics and questions. --Joe Janangelo, Program Chair

This list is suggestive. You are welcome to propose any ideas not explicitly tied to the conference theme but important to writing program administration. 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!

• What have been our key or catalytic learning moments as individuals and as a profession?
• What have been—and should be—our sources of learning?
• How have evolving technologies and new media influenced our learning?
• How can we put our learning into practice with students, colleagues, administrators, accrediting agencies, the media, and the public?
• How can we best learn from the feedback—both laudatory and critical?
• How is student learning marked and (mis)measured?
• What have you had to “un-learn” or re-evaluate?
• Thinking about readiness, receptivity, and resistance, how does learning relate to timing?
• How can WPAs learn from failure and trauma? Thinking about learning as an ongoing and recursive process, how might we chart growth or development when it is attended by difficulty and setbacks? How can tension, censure, or failure contribute to learning?
• How can we better document, preserve, protect, and share our learning?
• How does WPA scholarship (e.g. conceived contextually as the work we do on campus as well as in grants, multimedia projects, and publications) reflect our learning as an intellectual community? How does it influence, direct, or constrain knowledge making?
• What are key differences between personal and programmatic learning? How can we bridge or reconcile them?

Once again, this list is suggestive. You are welcome to propose any ideas not explicitly tied to the conference theme but important to writing program administration.