Dear CWPA Members:
To our new and returning members, welcome! My name is Erin Lehman, and I am honored to serve as your CWPA president for the next year. I believe in the mission of CWPA to support WPAs and many others doing WPA work in our field. This year, I celebrate the diverse roles and institutions that collaborate with and help build CWPA’s resources and guidance, and invite all of our writing, rhetoric, and literacy colleagues into our organization. I’m writing with a few updates.
First, the Spring 2025 issue of WPA: Writing Program Administration 48.2 is now available. If you are a current member, you can access this new issue online through the CWPA website.
Next, I'd like to celebrate our recent award winners and grant recipients.
Graduate Research Award Committee, Chaired by Andy Liu Jiahao
The CWPA Graduate Research Award Committee proudly presents the 2025 Graduate Research Award to Ethan Voss, a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, for his work "Leading Through Uncertainty: Navigating Personal and Collective Crises as Writing Program Administrators." The committee finds Ethan's submission timely, compelling, thoughtful, and full of promise. In particular, the committee is impressed by the clear articulation of his argument, the sound research design, and the manuscript's powerful resonance with the lived experiences of current WPAs. Ethan's use of the crisis lens is novel and brings new insights to the WPA community.
The Graduate Research Award Committee would also like to acknowledge Jagadish Paudel, a postdoctoral writing fellow at Clemson University, as the Honorable Mention recipient for his work, "Rhetoric of Multilingualism: WPA's Initiatives in Enacting Linguistic Justice."
Kenneth Bruffee Award Committee, Chaired by Kristi McDuffie
The Kenneth Bruffee Award Committee is charged with choosing a winning article published in WPA: Writing Program Administration journal from the past year. We are pleased to announce “Using Case Studies for Training WPAs in SLW Issues: A Dialogic Exploration” by Anuj Gupta, Gail Shuck, and Christine M. Tardy, published in WPA Journal, issue 47.2 (Spring 2024), as the winner for this year. We were impressed with the innovative idea of using case studies to train teachers and writing program administrators about language diversity, as well as the specific examples included in the publication that others can use and adopt to their own needs.
Grants Committee, Chaired by Joanne Baird Giordano and Holly Hassel
Shane Wood, University of Central Florida, was awarded $3,500 for his proposal, “A Study on Students’ Knowledge of Socioculturally-Informed Student Learning Outcomes in First-Year Composition at a Hispanic-Serving Institution.” This research study will explore the following research questions through surveys, interviews, and an assessment of student ePortfolios: 1) How do students understand and interpret revised student learning outcomes informed by sociocultural frameworks and theories in writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies? How is that knowledge demonstrated through student ePortfolios? One goal of the research is to determine and report statistically-significant differences among diverse student populations through both indirect and direct assessment.
Lynn Reid and Kathleen Lyons, Fairleigh Dickinson University, were awarded $3,500 for their proposal, “Student-Informed Writing Placement Reform: Working Toward Directed Self-Placement with Undergraduate Researchers & User Experience Methodologies.” This study aims to reform the writing placement process at the researcher's institution using student-centered design methodologies. Building on recent examples of user experience (UX) design in directed self-placement, the research team will plan a placement reform process that invites students to participate as users, researchers, and collaborators.
Outstanding Scholarship Award Committee
Annie Del Principe is recognized for “Time as a ‘Built-In Headwind’: The Disparate Impact of Portfolio Cross-assessment on Black TYC Students,” published by the Journal of Writing Assessment. This article provides a research model that other institutions can build on in order to facilitate investigation of disparate impacts of their assessment practices. While her article focuses on a two-year college setting, the ability of this research to replicate across an array of institutions really solidifies its place as the recipient for this award. Multiple committee members called the article eye opening because of how it traces how social inequities can be found in assessment practices and how institutions can work to change those practices. This article exemplifies the kind of balance between theory and application that WPAs at all kinds of institutions can find useful.
The Outstanding Scholarship Award Committee would also like to acknowledge Abram D. Anders, Amy Walton, Ananda Astrini Muhammad, Caroliena Cabada, Natalie Deam, Emily Dux Speltz, Ryan Everett, Agata Guskaroska, Jenna Haffner, and Colin Payton as the Honorable Mention recipient for “Human-Centered Design for Inclusive Peer mentoring of Graduate Teaching Assistants” which appeared in College English.
Best Book Award Committee, Chaired by Kimberly Lacey
Disruptive Stories, edited by Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Sohui Lee, and Julie Prebel, is the 2025 award recipient. This timely and compelling volume makes a powerful contribution to the scholarship and practice of writing program administration. Disruptive Stories distinguishes itself through its transparent structure, responsive writing, and the intentional inclusion of diverse voices. Reviewers consistently praised the book’s approach to storytelling as both a methodological and rhetorical strategy. By centering the lived experiences of writing center administrators (WCAs), the book sheds new light on the often-overlapping and underexamined dimensions of WPA labor. While the book’s primary focus is on writing centers, reviewers noted that the insights readily translate to broader WPA contexts, especially as WCAs frequently engage in curricular design, assessment, labor negotiations, and equity work—all core concerns of WPA scholarship
CWPA President Service Award
We are pleased to recognize Dr. Lilian Mina’s extensive service to CWPA. During a time when the organization was in turmoil, Lilian stepped up. She served as Vice President from 2021-2023, and when it was time to serve as president, starting in 2023, there was no Vice President coming in behind her. For this reason, from 2023-2024, Lilian served in two demanding roles simultaneously. She wrote charges for and organized seven organizational committees, oversaw the incoming of key officers Amanda Presswood and Christal Seahorn, and in all ways managed the helm of CWPA. Thank you, Lilian!
Lifetime Achievement Awards
The Lifetime Achievement Award was established by Susan Thomas in 2022 to recognize those whose service to CWPA spanned their entire careers. Duane Roen and Kathi Yancey were recognized with this award in 2022, and it is a pleasure to continue that recognition with Shirley Rose and Doug Hesse.
Dr. Shirley Rose has been a member of the Council of Writing Program Administrators since 1989, when she joined after attending the WPA Workshop in Portland, Oregon. She was elected to a three-year term on the Executive Board in 1999 and subsequently served as an ex-officio member of the board. As an Executive Board member she served on all CWPA committees at some point. She was elected President in 2005, serving through June 2007. As President, she organized annual summer conferences in Anchorage, Alaska and Chattanooga, Tennessee. She co-led the WPA Summer Workshop for new and renewing WPAs in 2011 and 2012. In 2010, she was appointed as a member of the WPA Consultant-Evaluator Service, and in 2014 was appointed Director of the Service, a role she held until 2023. During her tenure as C-E Director, Shirley led professional development workshops for more than two dozen members of the C-E Service who collectively conducted over 50 visits to college and university writing programs across the United States and internationally. As Director, she matched consultant-evaluator teams to particular institutions and advised writing program faculty and administrators who were preparing for WPA Consultant-Evaluator Service visits. She became a reserve member of the service in 2024.
Dr. Douglas Hesse was elected to the CWPA Executive Board in 1992 and became editor of WPA: Writing Program Administration in 1994. Doug created the first CWPA website in 1997 and served five years as webmaster. He was elected President in 1999 and 2000, reviving the newsletter and arranging popular annual parties at the Modern Language Association Convention. A highlight of his presidency was the adoption of “The Intellectual Work of Writing Administration,” which remains widely cited today, particularly in promotion and tenure cases. Doug served on the committees to develop the CWPA statement on Plagiarism: Best Practices and on the 2014 revision of the WPA Outcomes Statement. He returned to the CWPA Executive Board in 2022 as Archivist and MLA Liaison, organizing the 2023, 2024, and 2025 CWPA panels at MLA.