QUWAC Fall 2012 Conference – New Vistas

Submit a Proposal for the 2012 Quinnipiac University Writing Across the Curriculum

Conference Theme - New Vistas: WAC/WID Intersections in the 21st Century

Conference Date: November 16-17, 2012

Proposal Deadline: Monday, June 18th, 2012. Send your 250-300 word abstract to Paul.Pasquaretta@Quinnipiac.Edu. We welcome both individual proposals and panel proposals. Individual papers/presentations will be held to 15 minutes in length, panels will be held to 50 minutes total, with time left at the end of every session for questions. The registration cost for the full conference (Friday and Saturday) is $300 and includes all meals and receptions, shuttle service, keynote address, and presentations. The cost for Saturday only is $150.

Keynote: Barbara Waalvoord, Professor Emerita, Notre Dame University

Quinnipiac University’s fourth biennial international conference on critical thinking and writing will be framed around the effects WAC and WID programs have upon the teaching of critical thinking and writing in major programs of study, general education cores, and first-year composition. To advance a collaborative dialogue about writing across and within the disciplines, we invite disciplinary faculty and writing specialists to share their experience engaging WAC and WID programs and strategies. In addition to investigating theoretical concerns, presenters are encouraged to provide practical, research-based techniques and strategies that promote critical thinking and writing in a variety of contexts across the spectrum of liberal arts and sciences, business, health sciences, communications, and education. In focusing on these effects, organizers hope to create a forum to consider several related questions:

  • How are WAC and WID programs implicated in critical thinking and writing pedagogies in the disciplines?
  • If the responsibility for critical thinking and writing is being shifted over to the departments, where does the work of writing specialists and disciplinary faculty meet?
  • Where and how might we work together in ways that support the global aims of undergraduate education and stronger learning outcomes in the majors?
  • What is critical thinking within a given disciplinary context? What does the writing look like that captures that thinking?
  • What specific writing strategies and techniques have been found to foster critical thinking and disciplinary expertise in the majors?

Presenters will be invited to submit their papers for review for publication in the inaugural edition of Double Helix: A Journal of Critical Thinking and Writing.

For more information about New Vistas, contact Paul Pasquaretta, Director of the Quinnipiac University Research and Writing Institute, at 203-582-8509, or Paul.Pasquaretta@Quinnipiac.edu, or visit the website: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/writing-across-the-curriculum/conferences

Posted in Conference, WAC/WID | Leave a comment

NEWACC Meeting at St. John’s University

The Spring 2012 Northeast Writing Across the Curriculum Consortium (NEWACC) meeting will take place on the second day of the NEWCA (Northeast Writing Centers Association Conference).

NEWACC  will meet on April 15th from 9:30am to 11:30am St. John’s University, Queens.  We will meet in Room 401 of the D’Angelo Center. See NEWACC agenda below.

Registration information for the conference can be found at http://northeastwca.org/ and at http://www.amiando.com/NEWCA2012.html

Please register through the NEWCA registration process above and/or let Anne Geller  (gellera@stjohns.edu) know you will be attending. Contact Anne with any questions.

Breakfast will be available on Sunday, April 15, until 9:30am in the Institute for Writing Studies, in St. Augustine Hall.  Directions to St. John’s and maps of the St. John’s campus are below.

Agenda

  • Introductions
  • Program Presentation/Discussion
    • Matthew Parfitt on assessment pilots under way at Boston University’s College of General Studies
  • Research Presentation/Discussion
    • Michelle Cox on multilingual writers and WAC/WID
  • Brief Quinnipiac University presentation of a new journal, Double Helix (http://qudoublehelixjournal.org/index.php/dh)
  • NEWACC Business (and any new business)
    • Welcome Tom Deans as new Chair, elect new associate chair, set date/location for Fall 2012 meeting

Directions to the St. John’s Queens campus:

http://www.stjohns.edu/about/general/directions/directions/queens

An interactive map: http://www.stjohns.edu/about/general/directions/directions/queens/interactivemap.stj

Posted in Conference, NEWACC Meeting, WAC/WID | Leave a comment

We Say/They Say, a Writing in the Disciplines Symposium

Date/Time: Saturday, March 3 (9-5)

Location: Lender School of Business, Quinnipiac University

Registration: Free (Online Registration Required)

The Research and Writing Institute at Quinnipiac University will host “We Say/They Say, a Writing in the Disciplines Symposium,” at the Lender School of Business.

Keynote: Neal Lerner, Writing Center Director, Northeastern University

The event will feature WID case studies from the Yale University Writing Center, Southern Connecticut State University Writing Across the Curriculum Committee, University of Connecticut Writing Center, and Quinnipiac University Writing Across the Curriculum Committee. A panel of disciplinary faculty will be on hand to share their experiences and concerns about critical thinking and writing instruction in the majors.

The day will include WID workshops hosted by the co-presenting schools, the materials from which will be made available to all visitors for discussion, debate, and dissemination at their home institutions. The event is funded by a Davis Educational Foundation grant and co-sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences, and QUWAC. For details and event registration information, contact Paul Pasquaretta, director of the RWI (Paul.Pasquaretta@Quinnipiac.Edu).

Posted in Conference, WAC/WID | Leave a comment

2012 NEWCA Conference CFP

Building from 9/11: Writing Centers ReImagine, ReInvent

St. John’s University, Queens, NY

April 13 – April 15, 2012

Keynote Speaker: Deborah Brandt

Proposals are now being accepted and are due by December 31, 2011

Download the official CFP at the NEWCA website (http://northeastwca.org).

NEWACC meets on the Sunday morning of the NEWCA conference.

Posted in NEWACC Meeting | Tagged | Leave a comment

Fall 2011 NEWACC Meeting & Agenda

Meeting Information

Date: September 23
Time: 11am to 2pm
Location: Mount Ida College, Newton, Massachusetts
RSVP: RoseMary Brooks (rmbrooks@mountida.edu) for a lunch count
Directions: http://www.mountida.edu/sp.cfm?pageid=373

Kati Pletsch de Garcia will host our meeting. Mount Ida College will provide lunch.

NEWACC Meeting Schedule and Agenda

11:00am – Introductions
11:15am to 12:30pm – Presenters and Discussion
12:30pm – Lunch
1pm – Open time for questions, members’ issues, NEWACC plans for the coming year

Working from the minutes of the spring 2011 NEWACC meeting (http://newacc.wac.colostate.edu/minutes/), Tom Deans and Anne Geller  have decided to shape the first part of our meeting with these overarching questions:

* What are students’ experiences of WAC/WID?  And what are ways we can explore this question?

Lorraine Higgins (Director of Communication Across the Curriculum, Worcester Polytechnic Institute) will share preliminary findings from a longitudinal pilot study of the ways that undergraduates at WPI encounter reading and writing, employing survey data and journals to track what they do and where. The focus in the pilot study is science and engineering students.

Michael J. Cripps (Director of Composition, University of New England) will briefly explore the National Survey of Student Engagement as a lens for answering the question “What are students’ experiences of WAC/WID?”

We would also like to ask all NEWACC members attending the meeting on the 23rd come with:

  1. some thinking about these questions (What are students’ experiences of WAC/WID?  And what are ways we can explore this question?); and,
  2. an article/a reference to an article that helps you think about these questions.

After our discussion, we would like to compile a bibliography of the texts that help members think about these questions.

Posted in NEWACC Meeting | Leave a comment

MIT Symposium – Academic Writing in the 21st Century: Looking Ahead

When: Saturday, October 29, 2011
Where: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cost: Free
Registration: http://www.planetreg.com/E716101125

In July, Les Perelman announced that MIT would host an all day symposium on academic writing in the 21st century. Given the list of speakers and respondents assembled for the symposium, this event promises to be a great day-long discussion of writing in the university.

Featured Speakers and Respondents

  • Robert Scholes, Brown University (Keynote)
  • Gerald Graff (University of Illinois, Chicago)
  • Cathy Birkenstein-Graff (University of Illinois, Chicago)
  • Chris Anson (North Carolina State University)
  • John Brereton (University of Massachusetts, Boston)
  • Nancy Sommers (Harvard University)
  • Joseph Bizup (Boston University)

According to the conference registration page, the featured speakers will address the following questions:

  1. What is the relationship of reading to academic writing? of one text to others?  How will these relationships change during the twenty-first century with the advent of new media, digital archives, open access publishing, and googlization of knowledge?
  2. How will the move toward interdisciplinarity in academic inquiry shape discourse conventions within specific discourse communities?
  3. How will the globalization of academic communities shape academic writing?
  4. How might the relationship among academic writing, civic discourse and literacy, and professional writing change with these other social, technological, and political changes?
  5. What will be the relationship of academic writing to rhetoric?
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

BSU Hosts Transfer from High School to College Writing Panel

On April 28, 2011, the WAC Program at Bridgewater State University (BSU) hosted a panel discussion on the transition from high school to college writing. The panel featured an undergraduate tutor at BSU, faculty at the university, high school teachers and principals, and the director of first year writing at BSU.

A podcast of the event is available at Bridgewater State’s WAC Program website (http://www.bridgew.edu/wac/Spring%202011%20Events/transition_event.cfm).

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fall 2011 NEWACC Meeting

The Fall 2011 NEWACC meeting will be held on Friday, September 23, 2011.

Kati Pletsch de Garcia has graciously agreed to host our meeting from 11-2 at Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts. Lunch will be provided.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Spring 2011 NEWACC Meeting

The Spring 2011 NEWACC meeting will be held on March 13 at Southern New Hampshire University, immediately following the 2011 Northeast Writing Centers Association annual conference.

NEWCA 2011 – The Writing Center as Community Garden

The 2011 NEWCA, held March 12-13 at Southern New Hampshire University in Hooksett, NH, will feature Professor Harry Denny of St. John\’s University as the keynote speaker.

Information about NEWCA 2011, including registration and lodging details, is available at the NEWCA website.

Individuals unable to attend NEWCA may follow the events through twitter (http://bitly.com/dGNxIN) or FaceBook (http://on.fb.me/eB32WY).

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fall 2010 NEWACC Meeting

Third International Writing and Critical Thinking Conference: Crossing the Great Divide: Critical Thinking and Writing in the Major

Nov. 19-20, 2010
The College of Arts and Sciences at Quinnipiac University
Hamden, Connecticut

This conference will investigate the linkages between critical thinking, usually associated with general education, and thinking within the majors—the disciplinary thinking students must master before they graduate.

We are calling this movement from general education to study within the major \”crossing the great divide\” because students often find that what they are asked to master in their major differs in focus and complexity from the critical thinking pedagogies that most general education curricula require of undergraduates.

Guest Speaker

Sally Mitchell (Coordinator of the Thinking Writing Program at Queen Mary University in London) will draw on data from her ongoing research as she considers the usefulness of highly general terms such as \”argument\” and \”critical thinking\” for students attempting to enter disciplinary conversations.

Registration

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment