A 4+1 model is in the works to create additional infrastructure and enrollment for our Writing, Rhetorics and Literacies program.
We are looking to add certificates at both the undergrad and graduate levels in teaching writing/writing studies. We are also considering proposing an MA in writing studies.
We continue to enhance the course offerings.
We cannot offer everything that our catalogue lists in a regular, sustainable fashion. We are also working to build more of a sense of cohort through our curricular sequencing. We do have a steady writing culture within our department, but we are not territorial in separating creative writing from rhetoric/composition. We do a bit of digital/new media writing, but we cannot devote standalone coursework to it. We are a small school.
we believe the MA in English (writing track) will become a formal stand alone Professional Writing MA degree. We believe the undergraduate Professional Writing concentration and minor will include interdisciplinary courses from outside the English Department.
We are working to develop a writing minor.
We are working on changing the structure of our creative writing workshops and adding more classes.
We are working on building a more robust Professional and Technical Writing concentration, and we're shoring up our current Creative Writing concentration with full-time TT faculty. English/Comm is the biggest major on campus, and Creative Writing is the largest concentration, so there is a demonstrated need to hire more TT faculty.
We are working on a BA in Creative Writing.
We are undergoing a revision to our UG core, and we'll soon have a universal core for all students in all colleges. This will likely change the UG writing requirement, which will have implications for how we employ grad students to teach, which will have implications for assistantships, etc.
we are trying to develop a professional/technical minor wither within or without the English department
we may also hire TT writing studies faculty who would perhaps develop a graduate concentration; again not sure of exact evolution
We are reviewing the requirements, courses, and curriculum of our writing major in order to make it more coherent, more reflective of current socio-economic and cultural changes, and more appealing to students across campus. Our graduate program is likely to see some changes as well, including more online offerings.
We are proposing a writing major. Our home personnel department is no longer going to be generalized Humanities and World Cultures; instead, we are going to form a Global Arts, Media, and Writing Studies department, though global Arts and Writing will have separate ownership over their respective curricula.
We are promoting our professional writing program more deliberately to interested majors on campus.
We are planning to add a writing concentration to the BA English major effective AY2019-20 (BA in English will have a concentration in Writing and concentration in Literary Studies); a low-residency MFA (focusing on fiction/screenwriting) is also planned for AY2019-20.
We are looking into starting a writing minor
We have instituted a "public-facing thesis portfolio" as an alternative option to the traditional, multi-chapter MA thesis. Students may design a variety of genres that speak to either academic or alt-academic careers they wish to pursue post-graduation.
We are launching an MA in Technical Writing and Digital Rhetoric (Fall 2019)
We are introducing an MA and graduate certificate in Writing and Digital Communication and the program will evolve as we further understand the needs.
We are in the process of revising our English major curriculum. While we have not yet made a decision about our precise plan, the changes certainly will affect our Writing Track within the English major. The Writing Track is one of three tracks offered, the others being literature and teacher licensure, and the Writing Track includes courses in creative writing, professional and technical writing, and rhetoric and composition, as well as literature. In addition, while we do not have a minor in writing, we do have an English minor that can include writing courses, a Professional Communication minor administered through the English and Communication departments, and a certificate in Creative Writing (four courses).
We are in the process of revising one of our majors to amp up the presence of writing and more fully integrate rhet-comp, professional writing, and creative writing into a single writing studies major.
We are in the process of building a minor in Writing, Rhetoric and Literacies. After that is complete, we will start working on a WRL major.
we are in the midst of curricular reform and are not sure where we will go. it is my hope that we eliminate the writing/literature distinction and use advising and paths to help students take the courses they find most interesting and valuable. Within this system, we also want to develop a clearer path for creative writers that combines elements from literature and rhetoric/professional writing. We are also looking at developing an MA in Community Arts that would include a focus on creative writing.
We are in the midst of a calendar change moving from an academic year with three 10-week terms to a semester based calendar. All majors have been redesigned for the semester calendar. The new calendar takes effect 2019-2020.
We are gradually adding courses in the Writing Studies Minor (for example, Grant and Proposal Writing), and we are cross-listing more courses with the Communication Department.
We are currently working to design an M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition. As of now, the rhetoric and composition is only a concentration option for the M.A. in English.
We are currently redesigning our major. We will potentially allow students to have an emphasis in professional or creative writing.
We are currently in the proposal process for an undergraduate major in writing.
We are currently discussing implementing professional writing and professional communications certificates. We will also be launching an interdisciplinary digital studies minor in the next two years and our writing courses will be part of that.
We are continuing to assess and revise our curriculum on the graduate level; we will be doing the same on the under level in the next 1-2 years. We are also adding an online MA degree program in TC.
We are considering dividing our minor (currently called Writing Minor) into two categories: Creative Writing and Professional Writing. Most of our minors concentrate on creative writing, but we may attract more minors if we offer a minor in Professional Writing.
We have applied for department status and are part of an interdisciplinary proposal (with Communication Studies, English and Computing&Informatics) to have a PhD in Digital Communications and Culture
We have introduced concentrations within the English major, and writing (meaning creative writing, and writing more broadly defined) is quite popular. We are working on coordinating the development of concentrations as the new structure of the major is implemented.
We are beginning to build an MA in English.
We plan on adding a professional writing minor, and if that is successful adding a major
While we have had CW and PW concentrations, we recently proposed an undergraduate writing major that would blend aspects of both.
While there is movement to further develop a writing certificate, and perhaps specializing in different types of writing, the current budget model of the university doesn't allow for much expansion at this time.
We're working to enhance the writing minor and its offerings.
We're proposing an interdisciplinary writing minor to be housed in English. It has a decent chance of being approved.
We're in the middle of a curriculum review, so it's difficult to say.
We're currently looking into dividing the Undergraduate Major into specializations, we have just added a new certificate program in Scientific, Technical, and Professional Writing, we'll soon offer a minor in Applied Journalism, and we may soon offer an undergraduate major in Creative Writing.
We would like to add a major in writing, but a university budget crisis is preventing us from doing so.
We will re-design the Professional Writing Minor to attract more students. We will add courses of writing to the English major.
We will lose tenured faculty due to retirement; these lines will not be replaced. We will likely have to farm out some of the writing courses in the major to adjunct faculty (in fact we have to do this now for our professional and technical writing courses).
We will likely develop a creative writing minor and may change some of the requirements in our Communication and Media major.
We will continue to explore writing options to augment current course offerings.
We want to deliver our graduate program entirely online.
We plan to propose a minor in Writing and Rhetoric in the next yea, building on the Notation in Science Communication established several years ago. The minor will likely have several tracks (e.g. cultural rhetorics, science communication, digital/multimodal communication).
We plan to add a publishing and editing major.
We may join Rhetoric with creative writing and add a Rhetoric major.
We have just appointed a specific Director of Writing Studies to oversee the undergraduate Creative Writing and Writing majors and minors because they have increased in popularity significantly. We are also discussing some minor curricular changes to make it possible for students to get into the Creative Writing courses earlier in their programs. We will address the needs of the Writing Major once we have had it a bit longer.
We may create an undergraduate writing minor.
We hope to offer either a writing minor for undergrads or several new, upper-division courses for undergrads.
We hope to develop more writing programs on the graduate level. We have a Certificate in Professional Writing now, but a more comprehensive program would be timely.
We are developing science writing and web writing within our curricula.
We hope to develop a professional writing minor in the English department.
We hope to create a writing minor. Unsure if it can happen in next four years.
We hope to create a Professional Writing M.A. in the coming years.
We hope to create a creative writing minor.
We hope to begin a professional writing major.
We hope that the Professional Writing Minor will continue to grow and perhaps evolve into a writing major. We also hope that the PhD Emphasis in Writing Studies will continue to grow; this is an emphasis that PhD students in other departments add to their program of study.
We hope for a minor in academic writing.
We have spent the last academic year researching different models for a Writing Major. A task force issued a report at the end of last academic year and our Curriculum Committee will make a recommendation to the department, hopefully in the fall semester. We know if won't result in a BFA, but it likely will include a mix of creative, rhetorical, and professional writing.
We have proposed a minor, but it was rejected. We are hoping to resubmit in the future.
We have just implemented curricular changes to our Creative Writing and Professional Writing majors/minors. We do not anticipate additional changes in the coming four years.
We have just implemented a new curriculum and don't foresee changes in the next four years, but the institution has a new provost and new general education requirements. Those factors may precipitate changes.
We are being moved into a department comprised of writing, communications, and graphic arts.
We are attempting to propose a Writing B.S. We also are attempting to revise our B.A. in English to include a Writing Studies track.
A minor in Writing Studies will likely be added.
For clarity, these questions don't quite get at what we offer. Our major and minor is Writing Studies which includes various concentrations: creative writing, rhetorical writing, professional writing
In AY 2015-16, the Writing Department was relocated as part of a college-level realignment. We are continuing to figure out what the needs of the program are in its new configuration.
If we are able to hire another creative writing instructor, we may add a creative writing minor.
I think we are likely to see more internships for grads/undergrads and more attention to undergraduate research. We are hoping to reduce the teaching load for TAs. I think we may see more research focused on writing transfer, social justice, archival work, and composing,including everyday writing, digital composing, and assemblage.
I need to explain my answers to several of the preceding questions.
While [we do] not offer a major in Creative Writing, it does offer something that is close to that but technically different: we call it an English major with emphasis in Creative Writing. The university is careful to distinguish, in its terminology, that this is not a major in CW but an English major with emphasis in CW. For purposes of your survey, this may amount to the same thing as having a CW major.
Likewise, we do not offer a masters degree in CW, but we do have a masters degree in English with a CW track.
While we have not added new degrees to our English program at [our institution], we did a thorough overhaul of our English department curriculum, including the English major with emphasis in CW, in 2017.
[We do] not offer either a BA degree or a MA degree in "Writing."
Beginning this year, we are offering, collaboratively with the Communication department at our university, an Associates Degree in "Workplace Communication and Writing."
I have aspirations that we will offer a stronger MA level curriculum in writing, rhetoric, and teaching of writing. Although new coursework has been approved, we have insufficient rhet-comp faculty to teach both the advanced undergraduate curriculum for English major writing concentration & minor AND to rapidly advance the graduate curriculum.
The English MA program (literature focused) is at risk; it has been flagged as "underperforming" for low enrollments. It might not survive state-level decisions about program closures.
I expect that there might be a writing certification or graduate classes for local educators for the teaching of writing.
I envision / hope that in the next four years eportfolios will come to play a larger role in the writing major and minor.
I don't know that we'll achieve it in four years, but the Writing Studies Program is starting to lay the groundwork for a writing minor.
I can see the potential for digital/multimodal composing being added.
I believe we will reconfigure our courses to highlight core concepts rather than specific types of classes. For example, "Writing in Workplace Genres" might become "Genre Theory," so as to create more opportunities to expand. The workplace is constantly changing--trying to focus on specific genres is not helpful.
I anticipate that in the next four years the new creative writing minor may be converted to a major.
Humanities, under which the both the English Department that offers major/minor in creative writing and literature, as well as the Writing Program, is severely understaffed and underfunded as our small liberal arts university pivots to emphasize business, education, and health science majors.
Nevertheless, there may be possibilities to partner with these disciplines to offer WAC or WID courses.
Hoping to create a writing major - rather than just a track.
Everything depends on enrollment trends, which are remarkably unstable right now.
In the past 4 years, both the number of students minoring in writing and the number of students graduating with the minor has tripled. At the same time, we have seen very large annual jumps in the size of the entering first-year class. Considering that the same faculty teach first-year writing and upper-level writing courses in the Writing Minor, and that the size of this faculty has not increased proportionally to the number of students we must serve, it appears likely that Writing Program members will not be able to continue teaching enough upper-level writing courses to sustain the Writing Minor at its current levels of enrollment. To address this crisis, we may need to either restructure or eliminate the Writing Minor.
English faculty have begun discussing creating tracks in the major that would include a literature focus, a creative writing focus, and a writing and rhetoric focus.
We have also discussed transitioning the Professional Writing minor to a Writing minor with options for a professional writing focus, creative writing focus, or writing studies.
An upper division "Topics in Writing" course has been created to pave the way to create a writing major and/or minor.
Emphasis on rhetoric and writing at the Master's degree level has increased based on student demand. We now offer more rhetoric and composition courses (Topics in Rhetoric, Teaching Composition, Theory and Practice of Tutoring Writing, Composition Pedagogy and Research Practicum), and likely will continue to add more; students in the MA English degree program now have the opportunity to write a thesis in rhetorical studies; and we have added a Graduate Teaching Associate program that hires, trains, and mentors graduate students as instructors of record for FYC. This is all in response to the demands of graduate students for training and experience in the teaching of writing.
Discussion are underway for creating a writing minor.
currently, the writing major/minor are housed in Rhetoric dept (with Comm Studies) and the creative writing major/minor is housed in English. This forces some competition, as students cannot major in both. So we are beginning conversations about how we can collaborate and redesign our majors/minors to be more innovative and promote greater breadth of learning.
Creative writing is exploding, which may well lead us to creating an undergrad track to meet the needs. We've also had discussions about creating an MFA of either the on-campus or low-res ilk.
Because we are part of a consortium [...], one of our sister institutions, [...] has a new writing major. Our students can, through some administrative wrangling, major in writing through the Scripps program.
Because the writing majors are fairly new, we anticipate needing to make some changes to course requirements and expectations.
As the new WPA, I will be proposing (within the next three years, hopefully) the creation of a Graduate Certificate in Composition & Rhetoric Pedagogy. My goal is to strengthen our writing faculty (the certificate would be free for anyone employed by the college) and the faculty pool from which we draw (we are located in [...] and there are several institutions in the area whose graduate students might benefit from the training). I am also looking to perform outreach to area high schools-- the certificate would be marketed to current and future high school English teachers.
An undergraduate Rhetoric minor has been in the pipeline for over three years; we are hopeful that it will be approved.
Although it isn't strictly speaking a CW major, there is a CW concentration within the English major. This was instituted in 2016. Its leadership may be reconfigured in the next several years.
All of our programs are combined English studies, and so student may concentrate on rhetoric writing at BA, MA level. They MUST concentrate on rhetoric/writing and culture for the PHD. We moved from a rhetoric writing track and a literature track to a combined (trackless) program last year. Students complete faster.
Addition of a Writing emphasis in the English M.A.
adding a CW minor probably
A new creative writing minor is beginning in the next academic year, 2018-19.
in process of hiring a WPA
It is likely that in the next few years we will eliminate the creative writing and technical writing specializations. Both programs have very small numbers of students.
We are a specialized health sciences institution.
The first-year composition program (developmental writing, ENGL 090; composition 1, ENGL 101; and composition 2, ENGL 102) are undergoing revision, specifically targeting student learning outcomes for the purposes of assessment and scope and sequence.
We anticipate more courses in creative writing and perhaps graduate-level offerings in writing.
We anticipate minor curricular changes to the major following an external program review. We are also exploring the possibility of the Professional Writing and Rhetoric major and minor being moved out of Humanities and into the School of Business.
We anticipate changes to the core requirements in the major, perhaps as soon as next year.
Things are in flux. We have aspirations but are unsure about our ability to effect changes.
There may be a more concerted focus on composition as an area of specialty in the English PhD program.
There is a creative writing minor in development now.
There have been considerable changes to the administrative, curricular, and support structures of SJU’s writing programs/curricula in recent years.
In 2006 the University created the Institute for Writing Studies, which included the First-Year Writing Program, the Writing Center, and the Writing Across the Curriculum program. However, in 2017, due to administrative restructuring, the IWS was dissolved, although its 3 components continue to exist—just not coordinated as part of a single multifaceted enterprise.
When the IWS was created in 2006, 20 new f-t writing faculty were hired. These were contract lines, renewable up to 6 years. In 2008, however, the University converted these lines to “programmatic tenure-track lines” and housed them in a new quasi-department, the Institute for Core Studies, along with faculty teaching the freshman experience course [...] and a core science for non-science majors (“Scientific Inquiry”). The advantage to this change was that contract faculty were converted to tenure-track [...]. The disadvantage was that their “programmatic tenure” status and relocation to a quasi-department ensured that they would not be regarded as equal in stature by their tenure-track peers in other departments.
In 2015 First-Year Writing faculty proposed a new interdisciplinary minor in “Writing Studies” that included 6 new courses. While three other academic departments embraced the proposal and signed on as collaborators (Arts and Design; Rhetoric; Sociology), the English Dept, fearing competition (its undergraduate major had been in decline for a number of years) & arguing that it alone ought to have ownership over any program speaking to “writing studies,” used its influence to pressure the Director of the ICS to retract the writing studies minor, which he did. Since then the English Dept, which has always had a small (approx 11 students) creative writing minor, has unofficially begun to refer to this as their “Writing Minor,” even though the curriculum remains largely the same.
Another noteworthy change is that all remaining full-time First-Year Writing faculty in the Institute for Core Studies, who have developed, refined, and assessed their own curriculum over the past decade, now have tenure. However, the English Dept has successfully argued that these faculty ought not be in control of coordinating their own program; instead, the dept successfully hired a new junior faculty member to serve as coordinator of the FYW program, for which he receives a 1-1 teaching load and a 10k stipend; this faculty member has yet to teach first-year writing at the University. FYW faculty have argued over the past several years to have basic self-governance over their curricula but have so far failed to convince the English Dept or administration to allow them to have the right to coordinate their own program. In past years the English Dept had no interest in first-year writing, and willingly gave up the course to the ICS in 2007. Since then, however, the English Dept was successful in converting its Doctor of Arts degree to a new PhD. With this new degree, the English Dept suddenly realized that it might attract more PhD candidates if it had control of the FYW program.
It seems likely that the English Dept at [the institution] will continue to seek ways to acquire and as a result take credit for the FYW curricula created and established by non-English Dept faculty. Those interested in a textbook example of how writing programs continue to be co-opted and colonized by other departments and administrators, [...], ought to look at the rise and fall of writing curricula at [this institution].
There are discussions about creating a cross-disciplinary creative writing minor, but this decision is contingent upon other wide-reaching general education revisions.
The [state] system has required a number of changes to general education, including upper division general education. This will require some modification to the major programs across the board. For example, the [state system ]requirement in Graduate Writing and Assessment Requirement (GWAR) will now be writing in the disciplines and has been removed from our current GE system. Majors will be developing their own courses for these areas in ways that may be different--hopefully under the guidance of a GWAR review committee or the like (which has not yet been created). Changes go into effect fall 2019.
The Writing minor is new, and someone will have to do the administrative work of the minor, even just approving courses and signing paperwork. For the time being, that's me, but I also direct the Writing Center, so I'm hoping that it won't always be me.
The writing minor is going "live" in Fall 2018, so I'm assuming some things will change in the next few years
The Writing and Rhetoric major is very new, so it may change in terms of courses that fulfill it and its size.
The status of PTW in the department of English is uncertain. It my become a separate unit. PTW's relationship to the Rhetoric and Writing track will need to be determined if this happens.
The next step, it seems, will be to try to make the Writing & Rhetoric Major and Minor a consortium-wide major and minor at [...], much like Media Studies or the Ethnic Studies majors. This effort would be more complex, due to different internal politics surrounding campus majors and minors, the funding structures for consortium-wide majors and minors, and the diverse staffing of writing professionals (tenure-track/staff/non-tenure track) at the various Colleges.
The English department is shrinking from 6 to 4 faculty to unsure which courses will be taught
It is our hope that the second Rhet/Comp position, Director of First-Year Writing, will be restored to a TT position (it is currently NTT and we have just lost the Director and are searching for a replacement).
Changes in Gen Ed will, I hope, add funding to the undergraduate course-embedded writing fellows program so that we can place a fellow in each WAC WI class as well as each first-year writing seminar.
The curriculum of the writing "concentrations" may change depending on who we hire.
The English Department is reviewing its curriculum broadly, which may result in changes to the Creative Writing emphasis and/or the Environmental Writing minor. Journalism is taught in a separate program from the English Department.
The emphasis on writing studies-related work in the Writing Arts major will grow, given that we have now have our Certificate in Professional Writing, departmental support for emphasizing Comp/Rhet more, and expected retirements (i.e. lines). This could mean a new major in Writing Studies, which would leave the old one a Creative Writing major. Or, it could mean creating Writing Studies and Creative Writing tracks within a single Writing Arts major (which I'd like to see named simply "Writing").
The department keeps talking about the possibility of adding a writing major or a track to the English major. I have sketched two possible versions. The Dean is supportive. But the talks haven't gone beyond the department meeting level.
The Department has recently been discussing requiring literature surveys of all of our majors (not just CW majors). Currently, students majoring in CW must take 2 literature courses at the 100-200 level (of 5 required) and 2 at the 300-400 level (of 5 required; the other requirements are 2 intro CW courses, 2 advanced CW courses, a 200-level survey of literary theory, and a capstone). We do not stipulate which courses these literature offerings must be; it's possible for majors to complete nothing but special topics literature courses, and we're debating the value of that.
The department has been asking to have a tenure track line in creative writing for the last decade or more. At this point we are hoping that finally we will get such a position, not in the 2018-19 academic year, but soon thereafter. We hope to begin with a program or a minor in creative writing and then, depending on interest, expand it both into a major and into other modes of composition.
See response to previous question--plan to expand program offerings, including revising creative writing minor, adding a rhetorics/professional writing minor, and a new writing major; add new courses; and hire new faculty.
Revisions to the general education program will mean that by fall 2020, we will not offer composition courses anymore. Writing instruction will occur in specified, multiple course locations. The elimination of composition courses will mean changes to the major and minor writing programs.
Professional writing is low-enrolled. I'm not sure whether or not it will be sustained.
Our Writing Studies minor and clusters (part of our school's curricular requirement) are new, so we anticipate having to make changes to support these well.
Our new BA in Writing with CW and Prof Writing tracks has just been approved and we have added it to the catalog this year. There will probably be changes as we move forward but it is too early to predict what those changes might be.
Our Creative Writing program has been strengthened by adding a course associated with a nationally known faith and writing journal _Relief Journal_ where students work on the production team for the journal. We also publish an undergraduate journal with a student staff [...] We are uniquely positioned to allow student experiences working with two journals.
Major administrative changes may result in major programmatic changes.
Lack of true support
Just hired our first specialist in professional writing. She will teach core courses in the major and minor and administer the professional writing minor.
[The institution] is reorganizing from academic departments reporting to a Provost to five schools reporting to Deans. The Professional Writing major and minor may have more autonomy in this new structure.
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