August 31, 2009
Fall 2009 is starting off with a bang. Classes are filled to the brim with a record number of incoming first year students, we have double the number of projected majors in writing and rhetoric, and our general education course offerings are at capacity. We are well on our way to fulfilling our mission to support a culture of writing across contexts, genres, media, and disciplines at Oakland University, preparing students for the challenges of thinking and writing in the 21st century.
We are welcoming two new assistant professors to our department -- Dana Driscoll, PhD from Purdue University, and Betsy Allan, PhD from Temple University. Both Dana and Betsy will be active in developing curriculum and assessment for our first year writing program and upper level courses for our majors. Both have strong backgrounds in writing program theory, tutor training, and teaching with new media. Dana served for two years as administrator of the Purdue OWL and Betsy taught multimodal composition to architecture majors at Temple.
We are also increasing our service to national organizations in rhetoric and composition:
- Alice Horning has been named editor of the WPA Journal and Lori Ostergaard, Greg Giberson, and Jim Nugent have been named assistant editors.
- Dana Driscoll has been named CCCC MemberWeb editor, working with the CCCC website and social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter.
- I will continue to direct our local site of the National Writing Project, with Lori Ostergaard as our Tech Liaison. Cornelia Pokrzywa, Rebecca Rivard, and Laura Gabrion have been active on the leadership team for the Meadow Brook Writing Project helping to develop and implement a vision for the site to help improve the teaching and learning of writing at the local level.
- Kathy Skomski, Lisa Hine, Art Orme, and Shaun Moore joined the ranks of Teacher Consultants for the writing project after completing the 2009 Meadow Brook Writing Project invitational summer institute for teachers of writing.
- Cornelia, Rebecca, and Shaun attended a retreat for Writing In Digital Environments: Pedogagies and Theories (WIDE PATHS) at Red Cedar Writing Project in Lansing, participating in discussions of best practices in teaching with social media, collaborative writing tools, and visual media. Rebecca also attended the Sloan-C International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning in San Francisco in June.
- Timothy Briggs and Glen Armstrong attended the Digital Media and Composition 2009 summer institute at Ohio State University, participating in a community of scholars from across the country to examine issues in digital media and composition. Facilitators included Cindy and Dickie Selfe, Scott Dewitt, Cheryl Ball, and Kris Blair.
These are only a few of the initiatives that are happening this fall, with more than we can mention in a brief update. It's an exciting time to be a part of the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Oakland University.
UPCOMING DATES
Thursday, September 3: First day of class
Wednesday, September 16: WRT full-time faculty meeting
Friday, September 18: WRT 1st annual Praxis and Allies competition (tentative)
Saturday, September 19: WRT 1st annual welcome back picnic (faculty, staff, spouses, children, and students welcome).
Wednesday/Thursday, September 23-24: First year writing staff meetings
Friday, September 25: Connections meeting
OTHER IMPORTANT DATES
Friday, October 30: Connections meeting
Wednesday/Thursday, November 4-5: First year writing staff meetings
Monday, November 9: Stephen Prothero campus visit
Monday, November 23: Festival of Writers
