WAC Committee Minutes
Friday, August 25, 2006
1:30 LH 202
Present: Bonn, Igleheart, Matthews, Preston, Schulze, Snavely, Steege, Wallace
We discussed the issue of provisional certification for Heritage instructors who are scheduled to teach Heritage this year and are unable to attend the WAC workshops. We came up with a tentative proposal based on the number of people who either hadn’t responded to the workshop invite or said they were unable to attend: if a faculty member who already has experience teaching writing is unable to attend the workshops, they will be reminded that attendance is mandatory, and they should make plans now to attend the workshops next year on August 28th, 29th and 30th. Someone from the WAC committee will arrange to meet with faculty who can’t make the fall workshops and talk to them about WAC “at Carthage.” These instructors will be granted provisional certification until next year.
Also, we discussed whether we would need to offer a workshop at the end of J-term and before the beginning of spring term. Another option may be to assign faculty who do not have experience teaching writing a mentor.
We also discussed questions/issues that should be addressed at the meeting for department chairs: what courses should be WI? Who is teaching the class is important, the instructor must be certified to teach WI. Emphasis should be placed on planning. Also, assessment is important, not just of course objectives, but also how the course fits into the department’s curriculum. Stress that department chairs are ultimately responsible for ensuring enough WI courses are offered in their department so their majors can graduate (and obviously, a department has the option to have 2 required WI courses in their major).
The committee discussed choosing the new representative from the Education Division. Barb Short is the new representative.
Questions the committee would like to pose to Marty during the Wednesday night meeting were raised: what insight can she provide for ACE-like courses that are WI? What is the best way to provide training to adjuncts teaching in ACE or the night school? What is the best way to make departments responsible for offering enough WI sections?
Meeting adjourned at 2:20