Minutes of the WAC Committee Meeting

April 5, 2006, 3:30 p.m.

Present: Michelle Bonn, Maria Carrig, Rick Matthews, Leonard Schulze, Anne Shaw, Fred Smiley, David Steege, Alan Wallace

The committee agreed to form two subcommittees: the Heritage Outreach Subcommittee (Leonard Schulze, Maria Carrig and David Steege) and the WAC Outreach Subcommittee (Michelle Bonn and Rick Matthews). The Heritage Outreach Subcommittee will help the Heritage program with its writing intensive (WI) proposals, and facilitate implementation and assessment of the WI component of Heritage in the 2006-07 academic year. The WAC Outreach Subcommittee will work with individual departments to help implement the WAC program.

The committee discussed how to coordinate the fall WAC workshop with the Heritage workshop. Alan Wallace has discussed with the HOC the length and scheduling of the workshops. It was agreed that there will be one 4-day period of workshops in August: the first day will be devoted to specific Heritage workshops; the second day will be divided between a morning meeting with department chairs about implementing WAC in their departments, and an afternoon meeting with new instructors. Days 3 and 4 will be WAC workshops led by Professor Marty Townsend.

Compensation for attendance at these workshops was discussed. It was agreed that instructors should be compensated on a one-time basis for each WAC workshop attended, and that anyone teaching WI should be strongly encouraged to attend the workshops.

The committee also agreed that the WI proposal form should include a check-off line such as “Instructor has attended or plans to attend a WAC workshop.”

Finally, the committee agreed that, at the final faculty meeting of 2005-06, the faculty should be informed of our progress, reminded to attend the August workshops, and encouraged to discuss WI classes with their departments as a group, considering what courses will be offered as WI and who will teach them. WAC is a program for which all faculty should feel responsible.

Anne Shaw reported that several students who work at the Writing Center are interested in being on the committee. It was agreed that there should be two student nonvoting members. Anne will circulate an email with her recommendations, and the committee will choose two.

The two subcommittees will meet on Tuesday, April 18, at 11:45.

Meeting adjourned at 4:20.