College Writing Program to increase faculty involvement

Reaffirming its commitment to writing and undergraduate education, the College of Arts and Sciences has commissioned a faculty task force to re-evaluate the College Writing Program and will be conducting a national search next year for a new program director.

The task force, which was assembled to re-evaluate the Writing Program, passed several recommendations: increased faculty involvement, a single framework for the program with classes ranging in size from 12 to 14 students and a mandatory instructional course for writing professors.

Faculty task force chairman David Williams, a Psychology professor, said the goal was to evaluate writing at the University and determine the most efficient way to carry out the program.

"The writing program should foster a `culture of writing' throughout the College, and in order to do that faculty involvement is essential," Williams said. "Writing should be taught in a disciplined-based manner."

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman has endorsed the recommendations.

"The most important goal of our efforts is to improve our writing requirement," Beeman said. "I have not found it to be the case that every student walks away from their course with a positive experience. It is difficult balancing teaching about writing and teaching literature in one class. It is demanding in the best of circumstances."

In addition to increasing faculty involvement and training, a national search will be conducted next year for a new director to replace Michael Gamer. Gamer, an English professor, has agreed to hold the position for this academic year and is chairing the search committee to find his replacement.

In the past, the program director has a part-time position filled by a Penn faculty member. Beeman said that the program now demands a full-time leader.

"We are hopeful that we can attract a terrific person to this position," Beeman said. "The field of writing has changed a great deal in the past decade, and there is lots of talent in that field, which was not the case a decade ago."

Under the current program, one third of the courses are part of Writing Across the University, and the other courses are run by the English Department. Over the next year, the College of Arts and Sciences will take over the program.

"The first thing we have to do is integrate these two components into on uniform system," Beeman said. "The quality of instruction should be equal to that of any other regular course."

Williams, who is also the chairman of the College Committee on Undergraduate Education, said that the lack of faculty involvement and experience combined with the problematic structure of the program negatively affects the emphasis that should be placed on writing at Penn.

"It is uneven in its execution, and it does not have a clearly articulated philosophy," Williams noted. "The College does not make a clear statement from the faculty perspective of how it values writing and writing instruction."

And Beeman noted that instructor quality, as well as course quality, impacts the students.

"We are working on improving the quality of teaching.... I want [instructors] to have something in their background that makes them qualified enough to teach these classes," Beeman said. "I do not want to see any longer instructors only teaching these courses for the first time."

Writing Across the University Director Deborah Burnham also noted some problems with the program that need to be repaired.

"We need more instructors, more consistent training and a wider variety of courses outside of literature," Burnham said.

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