Fall 2007 Newsletter of the Council of Writing Program Administrators

In this issue . . .

Immediate Past President's Letter President's Letter Retiring Executive Board Members Plan for Future Work 2005-2006 Best Article Award Presented to Gail Shuck CWPA Announces Creation of New Award for Graduate Writing in WPA Studies WPA Funds Four Research Projects Reports from the 2007 Workshop, Institutes, Conference Plenary Sessions and Concurrent Sessions 2007 WPA One-Day Institutes Focus on Writing-Program-Based Research and Assessment Conference Plenary Talks and Banquet Speech Focus on Conference Theme: “Preparing Ourselves & Our Programs: Readiness, Relevance, Relationships”

Dispatches from Workshop Country WPA Works! NSSE/WPA Working Session “Technology Plank” for Outcomes Statement Moving Forward The WPA Network for Media Action Announcements and Activities Journal News WPA Consultant-Evaluator Service Update Save the Dates: Upcoming Events WPA Social at the 2007 MLA Conference, December 28 WPA Breakfast at CCCC in New Orleans WPA Workshop, Institutes, and Conference for 2008 - Come to Denver! Join or Renew Fall 2007

Immediate Past President's Letter

Dear WPA Friends—

Though August is one of the busiest times of the year for WPAs as we kick into high gear for the beginning of the new school year, I hope you will take time to review the news about recent activities, upcoming events, and initiatives of the Council of Writing Program Administrators presented in this newsletter.

On July 1, my term as WPA President ended and Joe Janangelo advanced from Vice-President to President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. His letter of greeting follows this one. This transition in leadership seems a good time for briefly reflecting on just a few of the highlights of the last two years as our organization continues to develop professional support structures for advancing the intellectual work of writing program administration.

Over the last two years, with the indispensable help of David Blakesley, we've taken big steps in digitizing our communications with WPA members, including offering online membership renewals and conference registrations, electronic ballots for Executive Board elections, a blog for every WPA member hosted on our website, a “Job Board” for posting position announcements and “CFP Central” for posting calls for papers for conferences, edited collections, and special issues of journals.

We've increased the number and variety of learning opportunities for WPAs by offering a day-long Technology Institute at the 2005 conference at the University of Alaska Anchorage and at the 2006 Conference in Chattanooga and offering our first Research Institute at this year's conference in Tempe this past July. And, beginning with the 2005 conference, we've offered a full schedule of professional development and program development mini-workshops during the conference to supplement our four-day intensive workshop.

We've entered into an agreement with EBSCO to provide online digital access to back issues of our journal, making our intellectual work more easily retrievable and accessible for scholars across the disciplines, and Dave Blakesley continues to upload PDFs of back issues onto the website, where members will have access to all issues and all site visitors will have access to all issues except those from the most recent two years.

In the last two years we've also passed some important milestones. At the 2006 WPA Conference in Chattanooga, hosted by colleagues at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first annual Summer Conference of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. The 1986 conference was held at Miami University of Ohio, which became the organization's first institutional home that year and continued to serve in that role until July 2006. At that time, the Executive Board designated Purdue University to serve as the new institutional home until July of 2009. In December of 2006, at the MLA convention in Philadelphia, at a reception co-hosted with Temple University and York College and supported by Bedford St. Martins, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the founding of the organization at the 1976 MLA convention in New York City.

I thank you all for giving me the privilege of serving as WPA President for the past two years. It's been a honor to provide leadership for an organization made up of so many highly capable, intellectually engaged, and generous people who have been ready, willing and able to give their time and energy to the organization, and I thank you for the contributions each of you has made to the continuation of the organization's work.

All my best,

Shirley

Shirley Rose, Immediate Past President
Council of Writing Program Administrators
Purdue University

President's Letter

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

I hope you are all enjoying some well-deserved rest before the fall term begins.

As we prepare for the new school year, I write to outline some of our major projects, to offer some gratitude, and to publicly welcome some colleagues who have generously offered to share their talents and time with WPA.

Our Partial "To Do" List: 2007-2008

As our organization evolves, we have lots of good and careful work to do. Much of that involves collaborating with colleagues in other organizations in order to:

As we pursue these important projects, I hope that we will also pay serious attention to diversifying our organization and our scholarship, and to strengthening bonds with our HBCU and community college colleagues from whom we much to learn.

Gratitude and Welcomes

Let's all thank Shirley K Rose for her stupendous service to WPA. Having worked closely with Shirley over the last few years, I can say that we could not have had a more careful or diligent steward.

Many thanks to our outgoing Executive Board members Susan Miller-Cochran, Marty Patton, and Becky Howard for their wonderful service. What a joy to work with such fine scholars and colleagues.

The words "fine colleagues" certainly describe Greg Glau, Barry Maid, and Duane Roen who did wonderful duty as our journal editors and as our Local Hosts for the 2007 WPA Conference in Tempe. I can never thank them enough for their splendid contributions to WPA.

Serving WPA gives one the honor of working with David Blakesley (our web master), Linda Bergmann (our secretary), and Richard Johnson-Sheehan (our treasurer) who provide vital and wonderful service to our organization. This very high level of service is matched by that of Deborah H. Holdstein and Chuck Schuster who do a great job of directing our highly-regarded Consultant/Evaluator service. These generous and remarkable people deserve our thanks.

Many thanks to Kathleen Blake Yancey and Irv Peckham for guiding the development of a technology plank for our Outcomes Statement. Projects like this keep our organization contemporary.

Very special thanks to Donna Lee Brien from The University of New England who gave a wonderful talk in Tempe about writing instruction in Australia . All of us at WPA are so excited to be working with you and your colleagues.

Many thanks, in advance, to Doug Hesse for offering to host our 2008 Conference in Denver . Working with you is already a gift.

What good fortune to have Jeff Andelora, Eli Goldblatt, and Barbra L'Eplattenier join our Executive Board. We are so glad to have you with us. And we're all very glad to welcome Linda Adler-Kassner, our Vice-President, who is already doing a fine job for us.

A warm welcome to our journal editors: Deirdre Pettipiece, Bill Macauley, and Tim Ray. Thank you for all your hard work on our behalf. Our journal is a very important part of our public identity and our legacy, and we are glad to have you oversee it. Many thanks to Jeanne Rose and to Lori Salem for overseeing reviews that will be published in the journal.

May this year be a wonderful and rewarding one for you and yours.

Best,

Joe

Joe Janangelo, President
Council of Writing Program Administrators
Loyola University Chicago

Retiring Executive Board Members Plan for Future Work

By Carrie Leverenz and Shirley Rose

At the annual Friday evening banquet at the WPA Conference in Tempe , AZ , WPA and its membership offered a grateful farewell to Executive Board members Marty Patton, Susan Miller-Cochran, Rebecca Moore Howard, and Chris Anson, whose terms ended in July. Board members serve three-year terms and are nominated and voted on by members of WPA. The following notes mention only a few of their contributions to CWPA during their board terms and note their plans for continuing involvement in the organization.

Marty Patton, of the University of Missouri-Columbia, served as chair of the Affiliates Committee. In this role she gathered, compiled, and reported up-to-date information about regional affiliates' activities, clearing the way for the creation of future affiliates. She also drafted a policy for recognizing international WPA affiliate organizations, thus contributing to the ongoing internationalization effort of WPA. Marty says her future work for CWPA will focus on labor issues for writing teachers.

Susan Miller-Cochran, formerly of Mesa Community College and currently of North Carolina State University , chaired the Liaison Committee for 2005-2007, which fosters relationships with other professional organizations. She also chaired the Research Grants Committee in 2006-2007, which reviews and awards research grants to WPA members. Susan plans to continue to work to bring more two-year college faculty and second language writing teachers who do writing program administrative work into the organization.

Rebecca Moore Howard, of Syracuse University, contributed to WPA through her service o n the WPA Research Grants Committee 2004-2005, where she helped develop the CFP and program for the WPA at MLA Panels for the 2006 MLA. She also chaired the committee that selected the award winner for the Best Article in WPA 2005-2006. Becky plan to direct her future work in CWPA to developing WPAs' awareness of second language writing issues and concerns.

Chris Anson, of North Carolina State University, completed his term of Immediate Past President of WPA. Several of his many contributions during his 9 year service to WPA include spearheading the development of Digital WPA, the organization's online content management system. It was Anson's vision to move WPA from a paper-based organization to a fully digital one. In addition, the Network for Media Action was launched during Anson's presidency and benefited from his guidance and vision for its initial projects. Anson also helped make progress toward the WPA's goal of diversifying through the development of the Minority WPA Workshop grant and by providing support for the creation of the graduate WPA SIG and Grad WPA-L. Perhaps most notably, over the last two years, as Immediate Past President, Anson has chaired the Task Force for Internationalizing WPA, providing leadership in the development of a strategic plan to increase our awareness of international perspectives on writing programs. Contributing to our internationalization efforts will continue to be the focus of his work for CWPA over the next few years, in addition to providing leadership for the work on developing a WAC Outcomes Statement.

2005-2006 Best Article Award Presented to Gail Shuck

By Steve Wilhoit

At the July meeting of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in Tempe, Arizona, Gail Shuck was announced as the winner of the 2005-2006 Best Article Award for work published in Writing Program Administration . The winning article, “Combating Monolingualism: A Novice Administrator's Challenge” appeared in the Fall, 2006 issue of the journal (30.1-2), a special issue devoted to the topic of second language writers and writing program administrators.

The selection committee consisted of Rebecca Moore Howard ( Syracuse University ), Joseph Janangelo ( Loyola University ), Rita Malenczyk ( Eastern Connecticut State University ), and Stephen Wilhoit ( University of Dayton ).

In recommending this article to the Executive Board of the WPA, selection committee chair Rebecca Moore Howard wrote:

"We offer this article for your consideration because of its effective blend of local narrative, theory, and concrete recommendations for meeting the needs of both first- and second-language speakers, an issue of increasing importance to WPAs. Shuck doesn't offer a single solution for a complex problem; instead, she describes both global and local remedies in an action plan that is both specific and generative. We believe the article will be influential for practitioners at both two- and four-year institutions and that it will also be useful in teacher preparation courses. Shuck's appendix of linguistically inclusive classroom strategies is itself a model of inclusion; it incorporates suggestions not only from administrators but also from students."

Gail Shuck is an assistant professor of English and coordinator of English Language Support Programs at Boise State University. Awards Committee member Steve Wilhoit presented the certificate of award to Professor Shuck at the Friday evening banquet, where members of her family were on hand to help celebrate the occasion.

CWPA Announces Creation of New Award for Graduate Writing in WPA Studies

At its Sunday morning Town Hall Meeting at the 2007 summer conference in Tempe , the Council of Writing Program Administrators announced a new award recognizing outstanding writing achievements by students of writing program administration. The award is intended to encourage graduate scholarship in WPA studies.

Entries should be unpublished manuscripts of 5,000-8,000 words or an equivalent multi-media and/or web-based project. All entries must have been written or produced by a student enrolled in coursework at either the master's or doctoral level and must be accompanied by an affidavit signed by a faculty member or instructor at the student's institution verifying that the student project was completed for graduate credit.

Each submission must include a 100-word abstract or other brief description; manuscript submissions should conform to the editorial and stylistic guidelines of the journal WPA: Writing Program Administration . O ther kinds of projects should be publication-ready as appropriate. Submit only the title with the paper or project. The name of the author, the program, or the course instructor must not appear on the paper or project.

Submissions will be judged in a blind review by a selection committee, which consists of a member of the current editorial board for WPA, a member of a recent WPA summer conference program committee, a member of the Awards and Recognitions Committee of the Executive Board of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, and one or two other WPA members, including one graduate student member, to be appointed annually by the president to serve a one-year term.

The author(s) of the winning manuscript or project will receive a cash prize of $300 and will be expected to submit a proposal for a presentation based on the project for consideration for inclusion on the program of the WPA Summer Conference in the year following receipt of the award.

Any WPA member can nominate a manuscript or project, but the faculty member for the course in which the work was submitted for credit must verify that the project was completed for graduate course credit.

Nominations are due by May 31 (or the last day for reporting grades for spring term at the student's school). Entries will be reviewed and a winner selected by September 1 of the same year and the winner will be notified as soon as possible thereafter. The winner of the award will be publicly announced and recognized at the annual WPA Breakfast at CCCC.

Addition information on the award and nominating material will be posted on the WPA website.

WPA Funds Four Research Projects

The recipients of the 2007 WPA Research Grants were announced during the WPA Breakfast at the 2007 CCCC in New York City . A list of the funded projects follows:

Accessing Academic Discourse: The Influence of First-Year Composition Students' Prior Genre Knowledge

Anis Bawarshi, Principal Investigator, University of Washington

Description of Project: The researchers describe that their study will help to “…determine what types of genre knowledge student writers enter college with and the extent to which that prior knowledge helps or hinders their abilities to learn academic discourse conventions.” They further explain that “…In order to understand more fully what transfers from first-year writing courses, we need to understand more fully what genre knowledge students bring with them into first-year writing courses.”

Researching the Presence of Advocacy and Commercial Websites in Research Essays of First-Year Composition Students

Randall McClure, Cleveland State University

Description of Project: This study will examine “…how first-year composition students make sense of and use advocacy and commercial websites as sources of information and support in their writing. I plan to analyze at least 100 student research essays for use of advocacy and commercial websites as well as conduct interviews with student writers who rely on such sites for their information in order to gauge their understanding of both the information and sponsors of these sites. Based on the findings of this research, I plan to propose strategies for helping students recognize and write about information contained on advocacy and commercial websites.”

Theories and Practices: Problem-Solving Strategies of New and Continuing Composition Teaching Assistants

Shelley Reid, George Mason University

Description of Project: In this study, the researcher will “…survey and interview new and continuing composition TAs at my university to find out about their rationales for key decisions they make in planning and problem-solving in their teaching. Do TAs' planning and problem-solving behaviors reflect both the theoretical and practical resources made available to them? Do TAs see themselves as "having theory/ies" that they use in planning and problem-solving for their composition teaching? Do those theories relate to the ones explained or modeled for them in their education in composition instruction?”

Writing Centers in Minority-Serving Institutions

Karen S. Rowan, Morgan State University

Description of Project: This project is “a national survey of writing centers at minority-serving institutions, including HBCUs, Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Tribal-Serving Institutions (TSIs)…The survey will include questions such as: What space and place do these writing centers occupy in their institutions? Do minority-serving institutions' histories and contexts shape the work of these writing centers in ways that differ significantly from predominantly white institutions (PWIs)? If so, in what ways and to what ends? What can we learn about both the possibilities and limitations of working for social justice in writing centers by examining the work of writing centers situated in institutions with historical commitments to social justice and those with often distinctly different histories?”

Reports from the 2007 Workshop, Institutes, Conference Plenary Sessions and Concurrent Sessions

Summer Workshop Participants Brave the Arizona Heat

The 2007 WPA workshop in Tempe, led by Greg Glau (Arizona State University) and Susan Miller-Cochran (North Carolina State University) brought together nineteen administrators from a variety of writing programs and types of institutions. They represented first-year writing, writing across the curriculum, writing centers/studios, and professional/technical writing programs, and they came from liberal arts colleges, research universities, HBCUs, community colleges, land grant institutions, and private schools.

During the workshop, participants spent three and a half days discussing WPA roles, program outcomes, curriculum development, program assessment, staffing issues, and various institutional contexts. The workshop attendees were especially honored to hear from guest speakers including David Schwalm, Duku Anokye, Jeff Andelora, and Duane Roen. In addition, workshop participants were treated to a “flashlight tour” of the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, courtesy of McGraw-Hill.

The workshop attendees developed several ideas for future workshops and conferences, to include a possible mentoring component to the workshop that would involve more of the WPA membership (so…stay tuned!). They have also begun a wiki to maintain an ongoing discussion throughout the year. Planning for next year's workshop has already begun, and next year's workshop leaders, Susan Miller-Cochran and Chris Anson (North Carolina State University) invite you to join them at the University of Denver July 6-9, 2008.

2007 WPA One-Day Institutes Focus on Writing-Program-Based Research and Assessment

By Jeff Andelora

2007 Research Institute

The 2007 WPA Research Institute, “Writing Program Based Research: Identifying Best Practices and Developing New Projects,” was led by Bud Weiser (Purdue), Susan McLeod (UC Santa Barbara), and Bob Broad (Illinois State). Designed for both new and experienced researchers, the purpose of the institute was to identify exemplars in the field and best practices of writing program based research (WPBR). Those new to program research learned about the types of writing program research along with appropriate research methodologies. All participants were asked to bring to the institute their own “tentative” research question(s) for discussion and were given opportunities to collaborate with others in the design and implementation of cross-institutional projects. The institute also addressed the “ethics, rhetoric, and politics of conducting WPBR.”

2007 Assessment Institute

The 2007 WPA Assessment Institute, "Electronic Portfolios, Writing Classrooms, and College Programs: Emerging Practices and Theories, New Issues and Challenges," was led by Darren Cambridge (New Century College), Margaret Price (Spelman College), and Michael Neal (Florida State University). The institute continued last year's focus on planning and implementing electronic portfolios. Among the many questions addressed: “What might a range of models and purposes be for ePortfolios?” “How should context matter when considering ePortfolios in local settings?” “What are the relationships between using ePortfolios in writing programs and courses to college and campus-level initiatives? In particular, how do we negotiate and map between programmatic and institutional outcomes?” Participants were given a reading assignment prior to the institute and were invited to participate in a blog at http://wpaassessment.wordpress.com/

Conference Plenary Talks and Banquet Speech Focus on Conference Theme: “ Preparing Ourselves & Our Programs: Readiness, Relevance, Relationships”

By Barbara L'Eplattenier

The plenary speakers at the 2007 WPA conference in Temple each focused on a different part of the conference theme “Preparing Ourselves & Our Programs: Readiness, Relevance, Relationships.”  Thursday, Kyoko Sato ( California State University , Northridge) described the preparation of high school English students for the college writing classroom and reminded us of the importance of working with high school English teachers.

In his Friday morning talk, Jaime Armin Mejia (Texas State University San Marcos) described what he has learned from his work of mentoring future Latino writing teachers and rhetoric and composition scholars.

On Saturday, Doug Hesse, Jennifer Campbell, and Eliana Schonberg described the creation, mission, and staffing of the Marsico Writing Program   at the University of Denver.  They explored how the relationship(s) between the WPA, the lecturers, and The Writing and Research Center was originally envisioned—and how things ultimately developed—during the program's first year. 

 At the Friday awards dinner, Ed White (University of Arizona) reminded us that, whether we like it or not, WPAs play a significant gatekeeper role within the university.  He urged WPAs to be consistent in their definition of what college credits represent, seat time or student achievement in regards to the transfer of credits, equivalency exams, or local challenge exams. He then declared himself on the side of Directed Self-placement as the most ethical and valid method of placement assessment.

Dispatches from Workshop Country

Rita Malenczyk

This year eleven mini-workshops, focusing in various ways on professional and program development, were scattered throughout the Tempe convention program. As might be expected by now, these were possibly the most popular and successful feature of the conference—well-attended, stimulating, energizing.

Lauren Fitzgerald and I had the pleasure of leading off the mini-workshop schedule with our session “Mapping WPA Spaces: Creative Approaches to Creative Work.” In this workshop, we used the concept of postmodern mapping to help participants discover new metaphors for WPA work and (therefore) new possibilities for their own creative and scholarly activity. Having asked the question, “What are the different spaces you occupy, and how would you visually construct them?” we allowed the attendees to use crayons, magic markers, construction paper, and some multicolored plastic shapes that Lauren had discovered at an art museum as their tools for mapping.

The plastic shapes reappeared, as a heuristic for illustrating program change, in Lisa Lebduska and Carol Peterson Haviland's workshop “Reinventing a Small College Writing Program: Studying Our Scratch.” To help WPAs involved in program re-development or evolution, Lisa and Carol demonstrated and then had participants enact a process that they might use to think through the ways they might proceed when trying to re-invent a program or revise program requirements. A similar workshop, “Reviewing, Revamping and Creating Undergraduate Majors” (led by Sue McLeod, Deborah Balzhiser Morton, Sandra Jamieson, Barb L'Eplattenier, and Keith Miller, a/k/a The CCCC Committee on the Major), explored what should be included in a writing major and offered ways to think about developing and/or revising majors.

I reappeared (like the plastic shapes, only larger) in Shelley Reid's and Doug Downs's workshop “Untenured WPAs as Change Agents.” With Barry Maid and me, the tenured and somewhat-more-experienced respondents, participants examined some potentially frightening scenarios that untenured WPAs might encounter. The group brainstormed approaches to the situations presented in the scenarios. The workshop was exceptionally well-attended, with close to 40 participants. Shelley: “We ran out of handouts; we ran out of chairs in the room, and we ran out of space on our initial transparency for listing all the smart ways that APAs…cope with and even turn to their advantage the institutional and disciplinary changes they face on a daily basis.”

Shelley Reid reappeared, with Bud Weiser, in part 1 of a workshop that will be continued next year in Denver : “Crafting A WPA Peer Review Process.” During the first part of the workshop, which was attended both by new and senior WPAs, the leaders—in Shelley's words, again--“talked about the various reasons WPAs might need a way for their administrative work to be peer reviewed,” whether for tenure and promotion purposes or feedback on particular projects. It was decided that it might be worthwhile for the WPA organization to develop and sponsor, perhaps initially through the C-E service, a peer-review system for individual WPAs; workshop participants then generated lists of documents and endeavors that might be submitted to reviewers in such a process.

On Saturday morning, Deirdre Pettipiece, managing editor of the WPA journal, facilitated the professional development workshop for potential authors and book reviewers. From Deirdre: “During the workshop, participants were given handouts explaining the review process and the possible responses, along with a copy of the latest CFP. A very lively and productive group discussion followed during which several participants workshopped ideas on how to make their current scholarly work suitable for submission to the journal.”

Speaking of writing, Shirley Rose writes that about a dozen people participated in the workshop on preparing a writing program self-study, sponsored by the WPA Consultant-Evaluator Service and led by Doug Hesse and Ed White.  A self-study completed in preparation for a WPA C-E visit was introduced briefly as just one occasion for writing such a study, then participants and leaders discussed other purposes and contexts as well. Leaders provided participants with several heuristics for developing the content of a self study, including the WPA C-E guidelines and a set of generative questions for identifying program areas of strengths and challenges.  Ed White emphasized how a self study should be seen as an opportunity to learn more about one's writing program and Doug Hesse circulated a list of suggested program documents reporting on basic facts and figures that every WPA should keep on hand in the "digital cupboard."

Suellyn Duffey writes of her workshop “Reconstructing the WPA: Building an Inclusive Paradigm” (co-led with William Klein): “ Our workshop began with by outlining the components of WPA life that are commonly talked about”—tasks, assessment, and working conditions—and showed how WPA narratives are more complex and varied than these three components allow. Using a metaphor from Jorge Luis Borges, as well as a generative heuristic, the participants worked on building “a theoretical construct that would let us use specific details of unique experiences to generalize more inclusive, whole understandings of what a WPA is and does, aims for and is constrained by."

Last but certainly not least, two important working sessions were held. The first, “Writing Items on NSSE,” was led by Bob Gonyea (Associate Director, Research and Analysis, of  NSSE),  Paul Anderson, and Chuck Paine. The goal of this session was to begin the process of developing 20 to 30 test questions about writing for the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). These questions would need to be ready by early October, would be tested in Spring '08, and would be considered for inclusion on the next edition of NSSE (Spring 2010 or 2011). In the first session, Bob explained how NSSE works and how questions were developed; participants in group work generated a list of concepts they would like NSSE to try to capture. He also explained that he believes NSSE should become more sensitive to students' writing behaviors because writing may be a "driver" of several other factors associated with engagement (e.g., higher-order thinking, time spent with faculty). In the second session, Bob described what makes a NSSE-survey question effective; participants worked in one of five groups (multimedia, context, process, location, genre) and generated preliminary questions. Further information and details on this project can be found at Shirley Rose's blog on the WPA web site.

The National Conversation on Writing workshop featured the airing of a draft of the 25-minute film produced by members of the Network for Media Action. The film included interviews with individuals discussing writing's role in their public and private lives that were conducted by writing program faculty at institutions around the United States . The film was compiled by Pete Vandenberg, Darsie Bowden, Linda Adler-Kassner, and Dominic Delli Carpini; after final edits, it will be formally debuted in a featured session at the 2007 NCTE conference. In the double-session workshop at WPA, Participants first discussed their impressions of the film, which were quite favorable, and its potential uses toward continuing the work of the National Conversation on Writing as well at airings at local events and faculty development workshops. Participants brainstormed on other videos that might be produced to further the work of publicizing our current theme, “Everyone's a writer.” Then, participants discussed the development of a multimodal site in which writing teachers and others might submit video, audio, visual, and written texts that demonstrated the vital roles that writing and writing instruction plays in our culture, our democracy, and our private lives. Many workshop participants suggested that they will find ways to contribute to this ongoing work.

WPA Works!

In July we introduced WPA Works! a new space on the WPA website for posting information about in-progress projects on which WPA members are collaborating. A brief account of some of the projects follow. Visit http://wpacouncil.org/WPA_Works for an update on these WPA initatives and projects.

NSSE/WPA Working Session

By Joe Janangelo

In Tempe, Chuck Paine led a double working session where about twenty of us worked with Robert Gonyea (Associate Director, Research and Analysis, National Survey of Student Engagement) to brainstorm questions pertinent to students' college writing experiences. The idea was that designing better questions may help learn more about the connections between composition and engagement/attainment. Such learning would, in turn, affect the work of writing programs and of writing program administration.

After Robert Gonyea's presentation of the basic facts about the NSSE, the group subdivided into smaller groups to brainstorm ideas about what we wanted the questions to capture. We eventually centered on five categories and the large group reformed into five subgroups to draft questions based on the following topics : Multimedia, Context, Process, Location, and Genre.

Since the conference, we sent drafts of our questions to the executive committee (composed of Chuck, Robert, and Paul Anderson) who will continue developing them for more discussion in September.

“Technology Plank” for Outcomes Statement Moving Forward

By Rita Malenczyk

When the Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition was first developed, the notion of developing a separate “technology plank” that would list what students were expected to know about writing with technology was proposed but rejected, in part because it wasn't clear that enough schools were using computers and other technology to warrant such an addition to the statement. Today, ten years later, it seems the time is riper for a “technoplank,” and an effort led by Kathi Yancey and Irv Peckham has resulted in a Technology Plank Draft (see www.wpacouncil.org/technoplankDraft ). The document was reviewed in both a session and in the Town Hall meeting at WPA in Tempe , where suggestions were made and incorporated. Further suggestions may be made via the web until September 15, at which point a Review Committee (including Chet Pryor, Glenn Blalock, Eli Goldblatt, Carrie Leverenz, and Rita Malenczyk) will review the document and submit it to the WPA Executive Board for approval.

The WPA Network for Media Action Announcements and Activities

WPA Urges Members: Be Proactive!

By Dominic Delli Carpini

In part based on exigencies created by the Spellings Commission Report on the Future of Higher Education, A Test of Leadership , the WPA Executive Board has issued a letter and position statement to members urging them to take action.

The letter and position statement, posted on the WPA web site, urge members to:

•  familiarize themselves with the Spellings Commission Report (wpacouncil.org/node/884);

•  share methods of/processes for and results of successful assessments via the CompFAQ site;

•  get to know the Director of Assessment on their campus and try to get involved with assessment practices, perhaps drawing on the WPA Outcomes Statement and the WPA-NMA Statement on Assessment;

•  educate themselves about the accreditation process at their institution and try to get involved in the accreditation research process;

•  educate themselves about their legislators' positions on education and consider help them understand how valid, reliable, and discipline-specific assessment is central to improving student learning; and

•  write a letter directly to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings expressing their concerns about potential actions taken in the name of the Report.

Along with the letter, WPA has drafted the WPA-NMA Statement on Assessment, and invites members to offer comments on the document through November. Like other WPA-NMA statements, this document is intended to provide framing statements that WPAs can use in discussions about assessments with a range of audiences, from writing program instructors to campus administrators to members of the public. The draft will be open for commenting through November; after that, comments will be incorporated and the document will be available for members' use on the WPA-NMA portion of the web site.

Both this letter and the assessment statements are part of WPA's efforts to support the proactive, informed, and important work done by WPAs on behalf of students and learning. Through this work, we believe that WPAs might affect the ultimate outcome of discussions about “accountability” and “transparency” stemming from the Spellings Commission. If you have questions about this work, contact Linda Adler-Kassner, WPA VP, at Linda.Adler-Kassner@emich.edu .

NMA's National Conversation on Writing and Fall Campaign: Everyone's a Writer!

Everyone is a writer. That's the theme of the NMA's multi-modal fall campaign, an effort designed to provide a different perspective to the doom-and-gloom pronouncements coming out of large-scale studies like the NAAL.

This year's fall campaign will roll out in several venues. First, it is the subject of the National Conversation on Writing , a video that will premier in a featured session at NCTE in November. This 25-minute video juxtaposes alarmist headlines about declining literacy rates with the voices of everyday people talking about their reading and writing experiences in funny, touching, and compelling ways.

“Everyone's a writer” will also be the theme of the WPA-NMA calendar, which will be mailed to all WPA members by early October. Like last year's calendar, this year's is intended to provide a nifty visual reminder of our message.

“Everyone is a writer” is also the theme of the NMA's regular fall campaign. This year, though, rather than send out a template press release, NMA will distribute an events calendar listing a number of writing-related themes and a kit that can help individual WPAs develop their own media event around the “everyone's a writer” theme. Once completed, WPA will also make copies of the NCoW video available should WPAs want to create their own ‘premier party' as that event.

As always, the NMA is hopping--and invites you participation. Be sure to check out our activities via the WPA-NMA page on digital WPA at http://www.wpacouncil.org/nma!

Journal News

The Spring 2007 issue of WPA: Writing Program Administration was mailed to current members in July. This was the last issue overseen by our outgoing Editorial Team led by Greg Glau, Duane Roen, and Barry Maid, who have edited Volumes 28-30 of the journal.

Our new co-managing editors--Deirdre Pettipiece, William Macauley, and Timothy Ray--held two well-attended sessions at the WPA Conference in Tempe , both a grounding session with reviewers and a professional development session with potential authors and book review contributors. Members of the Editorial Board and regular reviewers for the journal participated in a Friday evening grounding session led by Bill Macauley at which reviewers were given copies of a manuscript and scoring rubric, which they used to play roles of managing editors and their first contact with a manuscript, reviewers receiving the manuscript from the managing editors, or reviewers reading a manuscript that had already received a “revise/resubmit.”

On Saturday morning, Deirdre Pettipiece facilitated a professional development workshop for potential authors and book reviewers at which participants were given handouts explaining the review process and the possible responses, along with a copy of the latest CFP. A very lively and productive group discussion followed during which several participants workshopped ideas on how to make their current scholarly work suitable for submission to the journal. Two members of the workshop worked with the managing editors on a special issue proposal, and one worked with managing editors on how to extract a section of her dissertation and retool it for the journal. The session ran overtime and several participants stayed after to collaborate on their proposed special issue CFP.

WPA Consultant-Evaluator Service Update

By Deborah Holdstein, Director, and Charles Schuster, Associate Director

The WPA Consultant Evaluator Service has been extremely active in academic year 2006-07. Numerous colleges and universities requested information from Deborah Holdstein about potential campus visits. Two-person teams of C-Es were sent to more than five campuses in the past academic year, and a number of campus visits are in the potential development stage at the time of this writing.

Other news: The WPA-CE Service has added two Consultant Evaluators for three-year terms, Joyce Kinkead and Michael Pemberton, on the basis of a recommendation by the International Writing Center Association and in concert with the WPA Consultant-Evaluator Service's partnership with that group. A training session for all CEs was held at the CCCC Convention in NYC, and the group will meet again in 2008 in New Orleans . Also, beginning in 2008, a second CE training session will be held at the WPA Summer Conference; in 2008 that means a CE training session will be conducted at the Denver meeting.

If you (or your institution) are considering a WPA CE visit, please contact Dr. Deborah Holdstein, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Columbia College Chicago, 33 E. Congress, Suite 518, Chicago, IL 60605. (phone: 312.344.8219, e-mail: dholdstein@colum.edu ). Deb can inform you about the myriad benefits of and reasons for a CE visit, describe the various steps and stages that lead to it, and facilitate the many aspects of the process.

Save the Dates: Upcoming Events

WPA at MLA 2007:

WPA-Sponsored Panels and Social at the
2007 Modern Language Association Convention
Chicago, Illinois , December 2007

The WPA Executive Board, and the committee on WPA at MLA (Dominic Delli Carpini, Chair, Joe Jananagelo, and Rita Malenczyk) are pleased to announce the following exciting and timely panels to be held at the 2007 MLA Conference in Chicago , Illinois . The panels address issues of concern for WPAs that have been raised at the 2006 and 2007 WPA Summer conferences.

In 2006, Past President of the WPA Chris Anson urged our membership to revitalize the important research agendas that have always been at the heart of our work, research that can then demonstrate to many publics what we have learned about the teaching and administration of writing. This topic is addressed in Panel 1. Chris Anson will act as a respondent for this panel.

At the 2007 WPA summer conference, the membership discussed its ongoing commitment to fair labor practices in the administration of writing programs. Panel 2 will offer discussions of programs that have attempted to address those issues.

We hope that many of you will be able to attend.

Panel 1: Current Research Agendas in Composition and Writing Program Administration

Thursday, 27 December: 3:30–4:45 p.m. , Columbus Hall G, Hyatt Regency Chicago

Presiding: Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan Univ.

1. “The Search for ‘Replicable, Aggregable, and Data-Supported' Research: Rethinking What Actually Happens in Writing Center Tutorials,” Linda S. Bergmann, Purdue Univ. , West Lafayette ; Laurel Reinking, Purdue Univ. , West Lafayette

2. “But What Difference Can It Make? A Small-Scale Study of Course-Based Peer Tutoring,” Dara Rossman Regaignon, Pomona Coll.

3. “How Do Teaching Assistants Put Theory into Practice? Researching the Effectiveness of Teaching-Assistant Education in Composition,” E. Shelley Reid, George Mason Univ.

Respondent: Chris Anson, North Carolina State Univ.

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Panel 2: Ethical Practices in Delivering Composition: Beyond Labor Problems to Labor Solutions

Friday, 28 December: 10:15–11:30 a.m. , Water Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago

Presiding: Joseph M. Janangelo, Loyola Univ. , Chicago

1. “Permanent Lecturers: Somewhere Sideways of Tenure,” Douglas Hesse, Univ. of Denver

2. “Intervening in the Adjunctness of It All: Compensation for Adjunct Faculty Members Who Participate in Faculty Development,” Christine Faye Ross, Quinnipiac Univ.

3. “Passing on the Directorship of a Writing Center ,” Bradley T. Peters, Northern Illinois Univ.

4. “The Custom Textbook as Professional Development,” Kim McDonald, Univ. of New Orleans

WPA Social at the 2007 MLA Conference, December 28

To entice you further to join us in Chicago, WPA and Purdue University, the organization's institutional home, will be hosting a WPA Social at the MLA Conference , to which all WPA members are invited. Join us for great Cajun food and a cash bar on Friday evening, December 28 at Heaven on Seven ( 111 North Wabash Avenue, 7 th floor) from 5:30-7:30 . Details and a more formal invitation will be forthcoming.

WPA Breakfast at CCCC in New Orleans

Start your day right—meet and greet WPA friends at the annual WPA Breakfast at7:00 Thursday morning, April 3. Place and price to be announced later.

WPA Workshop, Institutes, and Conference for 2008 - Come to Denver!

Hear the siren song of majestic mountains? Good--then you are already in the right frame of mind to participate in WPA's workshop, institutes, and conference in July 2008. Hosted by the University of Denver and the University Writing Program, directed by Doug Hesse, WPAs can look forward to a first-rate series of events.

The workshop, led by Susan Miller-Cochran and Chris Anson, will be held on the University of Denver campus, July 6-9, with one or more institutes scheduled for July 10. The conference convenes the evening of the 10th in one of Denver 's many fine hotels, and the program will run through the morning of the 13th. The Call for Proposals and other details are posted at:

http://www.du.edu/writing/WPA2008.htm

Return to the site often as plans develop, and please do all you can to spread the word to colleagues far and near. The Workshop details, all registration materials, program highlights, housing information, and more will be posted on the web site and linked to Digital WPA.

See you there!

Join or Renew Fall 2007

Membership Benefits

To Join CWPA for the First Time or When Your Membership Has Lapsed

Visit http://wpacouncil.org/membership to find the appropriate membership and pay for your new membership online using our secure PayPal credit card processing system. (You don't need to have a PayPal account to charge your membership dues to your credit card.) Use the "add to cart" link found on each page to add the specific membership to the shopping cart.

To Renew an Existing Membership

Log in to the WPA website at http://wpacouncil.org . Go to "my account" and then click on "View your subscriptions." If you have an active subscription, you will see it listed. Click on "renew" and then follow the directions to complete your order. Alternatively, if you received an automatic renewal notice, you can use the URL in that message to update your account. Be sure not to buy a new membership if you already have an active one.

To join by mail

Send your name, address, institutional affiliation, email address and dues to:

Richard Johnson-Sheehan
Treasurer, WPA
Department of English
Purdue University
500 Oval Dr.
West Lafayette , IN 47907
rjohnso@purdue.edu

Dues are as follows: $30 (Regular Members); $10 (Graduate Students); $40 (Libraries)