Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline collects essays that shine new light on the early history of writing program administration. Broad in scope, the book illuminates the development of the profession in the narratives of the individuals who helped form the discipline prior to the emergence of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in 1976, including those narratives of Gertrude Buck and Laura J. Wylie, Edwin Hopkins, Regina Crandall, Rose Colby, George Jardine, Clara Stevens, Stith Thompson, and George Wykoff. Drawing from deep archival work, these narratives offer rare glimpses into writing program administration and the development of composition as a college requirement.

Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline collects essays that shine new light on the early history of writing program administration. Broad in scope, the book illuminates the development of the profession in the narratives of the individuals who helped form the discipline prior to the emergence of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in 1976, including those narratives of Gertrude Buck and Laura J. Wylie, Edwin Hopkins, Regina Crandall, Rose Colby, George Jardine, Clara Stevens, Stith Thompson, and George Wykoff. Drawing from deep archival work, these narratives offer rare glimpses into writing program administration and the development of composition as a college requirement. In addition to eleven chapters from contributors, Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration includes a preface by Edward M. White, a concluding essay by Jeanne Gunner, interviews with Erika Lindemann and Kenneth Bruffee, and a detailed introduction by the editors, Barbara L'Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo.

In this pointed appraisal of composition studies, Donna Strickland contends the rise of writing program administration is crucial to understanding the history of the field. Noting existing histories of composition studies that offer little to no exploration of administration, Strickland argues the field suffers from a “managerial unconscious” that ignores or denies the dependence of the teaching of writing on administrative structures. The Managerial Unconscious in the History of Composition Studies is the first book to address the history of composition studies as a profession rather than focusing on its pedagogical theories and systems. Strickland questions why writing and the teaching of writing have been the major areas of scholarly inquiry in the field when specialists often work primarily as writing program administrators, not teachers. Strickland traces the emergence of writing programs in the early twentieth century, the founding of two professional organizations by and for writing program administrators, and the managerial overtones of the “social turn” of the field during the 1990s. She illustrates how these managerial imperatives not only have provided much of the impetus for the growth of composition studies over the past three decades but also have contributed to the stratified workplaces and managed writing practices the field’s pedagogical research often decries. The Managerial Unconscious in the History of Composition Studies makes the case that administrative work should not be separated from intellectual work, calling attention to the interplay between these two kinds of work in academia at large and to the pronounced hierarchies of contingent faculty and tenure-track administrators endemic to college writing programs. The result is a reasoned plea for an alternative understanding of the very mission of the field itself.

A Rhetoric for Writing Program Administrators (2nd Edition) presents the major issues and questions in the field of writing program administration. The collection provides aspiring, new, and seasoned WPAs with the theoretical lenses, terminologies, historical contexts, and research they need to understand the nature, history, and complexities of their intellectual and administrative work.

This reference guide provides a comprehensive review of the literature on all the issues, responsibilities, and opportunities that writing program administrators need to understand, manage, and enact, including budgets, personnel, curriculum, assessment, teacher training and supervision, and more. Writing Program Administration also provides the first comprehensive history of writing program administration in U.S. higher education. Writing Program Administration includes a helpful glossary of terms and an annotated bibliography for further reading.

Combining formal quantitative research with narrative-based scholarship, THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION represents multiple voices from faculty balancing between the demands of teaching, writing, and administering writing programs in professional, ethical ways-often under circumstances that can be defined, at best, as difficult. In these pages, junior faculty tell their stories of triumph and trauma, while more firmly established composition scholars reflect upon the changing and challenging profession we all share.

Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline collects essays that shine new light on the early history of writing program administration. Broad in scope, the book illuminates the development of the profession in the narratives of the individuals who helped form the discipline prior to the emergence of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in 1976, including those narratives of Gertrude Buck and Laura J. Wylie, Edwin Hopkins, Regina Crandall, Rose Colby, George Jardine, Clara Stevens, Stith Thompson, and George Wykoff. Drawing from deep archival work, these narratives offer rare glimpses into writing program administration and the development of composition as a college requirement.