Senate: Boost Writing Program, but not at expense
of others

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he campus administration should provide the Writing Program with additional funds but do so without taking money from other academic programs, according to the Faculty Senate. The funds would be used to reduce class size, improve facilities, including the program's computer lab, and fully fund the Writing Center, bringing it in line with peer institutions that better serve students' writing needs across their universities.

     "I think every member of the Rules Committee was impressed by the Writing Council's report and by the Writing Council's recommendations," said Rules Committee chair Roland Chilton. "Our decision was that we should not recommend that the funding necessary to follow these four recommendations be taken from other academic programs. This is in hopes of having the administration consider other sources of funding."

     In addition to the increase in funding, the senate is recommending that faculty in departments other than English, particularly when teaching General Education courses, be encouraged to make use of writing pedagogy, such as multiple drafts and peer reviews, and that departments that have little used writing in classes prior to their junior writing course begin to have students write and revise often as part of their studies. The senate also recommends that student-support programs encourage their students who are placed in a prerequisite for the freshman English course to allow their writing instructors and their program counselors to discuss instructional diagnoses, as well as curriculum prescriptions. The senate also is asking that the Writing Program be more explicit with students about the rationale and system of grading in the course in order to reduce students' anxiety about their course grade.

     Another recommendation, that the first-year writing course provide students with more opportunities for expository writing, already is in the process of being implemented by the Writing Program.

     "We are firmly committed to the recommendations," Writing Council co-chair Brian Ogilvie told the senate. "We think the Writing Program does a very good job with the limited resources it has. I was a skeptic when I joined the writing committee last year because I've encountered students in many of my courses who don't write as well as I think they ought to. But the work that I did in the review convinced me that the Writing [Program] does a very a good job and needs the resources to do an even better job.
"Our students are not generally good writers, and a one-semester writing requirement in the freshman year is already a minimal requirement. We think at the very least the University Writing Program should have the resources to do a better job with that minimal requirement by reducing the size of classes and by providing somewhat better facilities, as well as by encouraging faculty to use the writing techniques developed in that course in other courses."