Addressing the issues and problems faced by writing program administrators (WPAs) and writing center directors (WCDs), and how they can most effectively resolve the political, pedagogical, and financial questions that arise, this book presents essays from experienced WPAs and WCDs at a wide variety of institutions that offer scenarios and case studies demonstrating the types of issues that these administrators have faced and their solutions. Covering a broad range of topics, the book will help both new and experienced WPAs and WCDs develop and maintain effective, efficient, and successful programs and centers. After a preface (by Douglas D. Hesse) and an introduction, essays in the book are (1) "In Pursuit of Competence: Preparing New Graduate Teaching Assistants for the Classroom" (Richard Bullock); (2) "Selecting and Training Undergraduate and Graduate Staffs in a Writing Lab" (Muriel Harris); (3) "The Problem Graduate Instructor" (Lynn Langer Meeks and Christine A. Hult); (4) "What Happens When Discourse Communities Collide? Portfolio Assessment and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty" (Allene Cooper, Martha Sipe, Teresa Dewey, and Stephanie Hunt); (5) "Introducing a Developmental Writing Program at a Small, Rural Two-Year College" (Paul Bodmer); (6) "Examining Our Assumptions as Gatekeepers: A Two-Year College Perspective" (Howard Tinberg); (7) "Mobilizing Human Resources to (Re)Form a Writing Program" (Louise Wetherbee Phelps); (8) "Writing Across the Curriculum" (Joan A. Mullin); (9) "Budgeting and Politics: Keeping the Writing Center Alive" (Linda S. Houston); (10) "From Virtual to Reality: Thinking about Technology and the Composition Program" (Deborah H. Holdstein); (11) "Computers in the Writing Center" (Sara E. Kimball); (12) "Productive Change in a Turbulent Atmosphere: Pipe Dream or Possibility?" (Rita Malenczyk); (13) "A New Millennium for the Writing Program: Introducing Authority and Change to Traditional Folks Who Employ Time-Worn Practices" (Ben W. McClelland); (14) "Running a Large Writing Program" (Linda Myers-Breslin); (15) "How WPAs Can Learn to Use Power to Their Own Advantage" (Barry M. Maid); (16) "How Can Physical Space and Administrative Structure Shape Writing Programs, Writing Centers, and WAC Projects?" (Carol Peterson Haviland and Edward M. White); (17) "Managing the Writing Center/Classroom Relationship" (Dave Healy); (18) "The WPA, the Composition Instructor, and Scholarship" (Lisa Gerrard); and (19) "Initiating a Peer Tutoring Program in a University Writing Center" (Robert S. Dornsife). Contains a 47-item list of suggested readings and an approximately 100-item list of works cited. (RS)

The role of the writing program administrator is one of diverse activities and challenges, and preparation for the position has traditionally come through performing the job itself. As a result, uninitiated WPAs often find themselves struggling to manage the various requirements and demands of the position, and even experienced WPAs often encounter situations on which they need advice. The Writing Program Administrator's Resource has been developed to address the needs of all WPAs, regardless of background or experience. It provides practical, applicable tools to effectively address the differing and sometimes competing roles in which WPAs find themselves. Readers will find an invaluable collection of articles in this volume, addressing fundamental practices and issues encountered by WPAs in their workplace settings and focusing on the hows and whys of writing program administration. With formal preparation and training only now beginning to catch up to the very real needs of the WPA, this volume offers guidance and support from authoritative and experienced sources--educators who have established the definitions and standards of the position; who have run into obstacles and surmounted them; and who have not just survived but thrived in their roles as WPAs. Editors Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos contribute their own experience and bring together the voices of their colleagues to delineate the intellectual scope and practices of writing program administration as an emerging discipline. Established and esteemed leaders in the field offer insights, advice, and plans of action for the myriad scenarios encountered in the position, encouraging WPAs and helping them to realize that they often know more than they think they do. This resource is required reading for the new WPA, and an essential reference for all who serve in the WPA role. As a guidebook for WPAs, it is destined to become a fixture on the desk of every educator involved with or interested in administrating writing programs, writing centers, and writing-across-the-curriculum efforts.

This book demonstrates how to develop and engage in successful academic collaborations that are both practical and sustainable across campuses and within local communities. Authored by experienced writing program administrators, this edited collection includes a wide range of information addressing collaborative partnerships and projects, theoretical explorations of collaborative praxis, and strategies for sustaining collaborative initiatives. Contributors offer case studies of writing program collaborations and honestly address both the challenges of academic collaboration and the hallmarks of successful partnerships.

Re/Writing the Center illuminates how core writing center pedagogies and institutional arrangements are complicated by the need to create intentional, targeted support for advanced graduate writers. Most writing center tutors are undergraduates, whose lack of familiarity with the genres, preparatory knowledge, and research processes integral to graduate-level writing can leave them underprepared to assist graduate students. Complicating the issue is that many of the graduate students who take advantage of writing center support are international students. The essays in this volume show how to navigate the divide between traditional writing center theory and practices, developed to support undergraduate writers, and the growing demand for writing centers to meet the needs of advanced graduate writers. Contributors address core assumptions of writing center pedagogy, such as the concept of peers and peer tutoring, the emphasis on one-to-one tutorials, the positioning of tutors as generalists rather than specialists, and even the notion of the writing center as the primary location or center of the tutoring process. Re/Writing the Center offers an imaginative perspective on the benefits writing centers can offer to graduate students and on the new possibilities for inquiry and practice graduate students can inspire in the writing center. Contributors: Laura Brady, Michelle Cox, Thomas Deans, Paula Gillespie​, Mary Glavan, Marilyn Gray​, James Holsinger​, Elena Kallestinova, Tika Lamsal​, Patrick S. Lawrence, Elizabeth Lenaghan, Michael A. Pemberton​, Sherry Wynn Perdue​, Doug Phillips, Juliann Reineke​, Adam Robinson​, Steve Simpson, Nathalie Singh-Corcoran​, Ashly Bender Smith, Sarah Summers​, Molly Tetreault​, Joan Turner, Bronwyn T. Williams, Joanna Wolfe

The Writing Center Director's Resource Book has been developed to serve as a guide to writing center professionals in carrying out their various roles, duties, and responsibilities. It is a resource for those whose jobs not only encompass a wide range of tasks but also require a broad knowledge of multiple issues. The volume provides information on the most significant areas of writing center work that writing center professionals--both new and seasoned--are likely to encounter. It is structured for use in diverse institutional settings, providing both current knowledge as well as case studies of specific settings that represent the types of challenges and possible outcomes writing center professionals may experience. This blend of theory with actual practice provides a multi-dimensional view of writing center work. In the end, this book serves not only as a resource but also as a guide to future directions for the writing center, which will continue to evolve in response to a myriad of new challenges that will lie ahead.

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.

Contributors examine the politics of untenured writing program administrator appointments given the demands of writing program administration, and reconciles the tension between WPA position statements and current institutional practice.