WAC Committee Minutes
Monday March 27th 11:45 a.m.

Present: Igleheart, Steege, Bonn, Shaw, Matthews, Schulze, Snavely

Anne announced that she will not be able to attend the WAC conference at Clemson in May. Snavely asked if there were any volunteers to take her place.

The committee discussed the new course proposal form. It was decided that it should be an on-line form that can be submitted electronically. The electronic form will have links to the guidelines and other important supporting documents.

The committee recommended a number of small changes to the form. Snavely will make these changes and bring the revised form to the next meeting.

The question of whether a syllabus should be submitted with the form was raised. Some had concerns that requiring a syllabus may be viewed as yet another obstacle in the approval process and/or that faculty would have to do too much advance work to get their course approved. On the other hand, some felt that a syllabus was necessary to demonstrate that the writing components of the course would be integrated in a meaningful way and that they’d be linked to broader course objectives. It was decided that a syllabus that did not contain a detailed schedule of course events or texts should be included with the form (sent as an email attachment).

Tom Groleau joined the committee to discuss concerns from the Business department about WI courses. The Business department is concerned about staffing their courses, and want to identify a course in their curriculum that is appropriate for WI designation. At the same time they are concerned about creating a staffing problem for the department. The committee shared with Tom the guidelines we are working on, what WI courses should include, and offered assistance to Tom and the Business department as part of an on-going discussion.

Snavely announced that at our next meeting, we’d have to discuss the formation of subcommittees. One will work with Heritage, the other will work as an outreach.

Matthews volunteered to take Shaw’s place at the WAC conference in May.

Meeting was adjourned at 1:00

WAC Committee Minutes
Tuesday March 7th 11:45 a.m.

Present: Igleheart, Keller, Steege, Wallace, Shaw, Matthews, F. Smiley, Snavely (late)

We approved the minutes from the last meeting.

We discussed the criteria for WI courses again. In terms of course proposals brought to the committee, it is our hope that they are brought voluntarily. There is some concern on the part of the committee that in some instances, departments may funnel the responsibility for WI courses to contract employees or adjuncts. The committee is not opposed to adjuncts or contract employees teaching WI courses. At the same time, we want to ensure that the courses that are brought forward are both voluntary and meet departmental and also WAC goals.

The guidelines and criteria were voted on and passed.

Leonard discussed his progress working with HOC in making Heritage courses WI. A six part plan for Heritage was discussed: 1) the HOC should generate a proposal to make Heritage WI, 2) we will review the proposal, 3) working in consolation with us, the proposal may be approved, 4) implementation and quality control [can HOC appoint a WI subcommittee to work directly with us?], 5) encourage those faculty teaching Heritage to attend the WI workshops that we will have in August, 6) communicate to the HOC our desire to reward excellence in teaching WI courses, and that faculty that teach the new Heritage (WI) in an exemplary manner will be recognized by our committee for their teaching excellence.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:50.

WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE

MINUTES OF THE 3/1/06 MEETING

Present: Maria Carrig, Leonard Schulze, Mark Snavely, David Steege, Alan Wallace

Mark Snavely reported that he has set up a blog for WAC (http://www.carthage.edu/campuslife/committees/wac). Minutes and other relevant information may be sent to him by email to be uploaded.

The committee discussed the potential problem that departments may designate primarily first-year courses as WI. It is not in the spirit of WAC to have freshmen take more than one WI course at once. Rather, WI courses should be distributed throughout a student’s four years at Carthage. It was suggested that the committee should meet individually with department chairs and interested faculty, to discuss how to distribute WI courses in that department. The committee agreed to invite the Business Department to the March 27 meeting.

The committee discussed the fact that assessment of the program needs to conducted at the same time as the program is being implemented; this should include tracking when students take their WI courses.

Leonard Schulze went over his conversation with Heritage Oversight Committee. He explained that the ongoing assessment of writing in the college needs to be coordinated with the assessment of oral communication, especially as there seems to be some dissonance between the approaches to teaching these two forms of communication.

Catalog copy for WAC is now on the web. The committee needs to go over the final WAC criteria to be distributed to faculty. Alan Wallace prepared a slightly longer document to go along with the basic criteria, that expresses the spirit of WAC and gives fuller guidelines. Both documents can be distributed at the same time to departments and faculty.

The committee agreed that the Heritage program will be the first class to implement Writing Intensive, and will need to submit a formal proposal. The committee will create an application form, and also will give HOC the WAC criteria they need to set up their courses as WI. Separate application forms will be submitted for Heritage I and Heritage II.

Some questions arose as to whether a particular course, such as senior seminar, will need to submit a new application each time the course is taught. It was agreed that a renewal form would be needed for such a course.

The committee will gather model application forms for the next meeting, and set target dates to have the forms ready.

The meeting adjourned at 4:25.