Testimonials

The Advanced Writing Program benefits from partnerships with people at the university and in the community.  Here is what some of those partners think about our program.

From a department we serve: "The quality of writing skills demonstrated by our students has markedly improved in the last few years...organization of their work is nearly flawless.  It is also clear that these students have been schooled in how to write an argument.  We have always had the opportunity to distribute the advanced writing general education requirement throughout our curriculum in the major...However, our department recognizes the value of exposing our students to faculty who are trained in rhetoric and composition, especially when the instruction they are receiving is of the quality that the Advanced Writing Program provides.  Thus, we will keep this requirement in our major...and make the cut in curriculum somewhere else."  --Hap Wheeler, Chair, Department of Biological Sciences

From a department we serve: "It is not a stroke of luck that our composition faculty teaches writing using an approach consistent with the one we use to teach design.  They have worked at it, both with us and independently of us.  We consider our students and ourselves fortunate to be the beneficiaries of the developments that have taken place in the Advanced Writing Program over the past three years.  The growth in student appreciation for and skill in written communication from the sophomore year to the senior year is apparent, both to our faculty and to our industrial clients.  Next year, at the request of our Provost, we will be introducing a revised curriculum that requires fewer hours of coursework.  We have had to make some tough decisions.  The Technical Writing course will remain in our curriculum."  --Joel Greenstein, Industrial Engineering

From a grant partner: "The Advanced Writing Program serves as a catalyst for activities that unite institutions, solve problems, educate and motivate students, and stimulate faculty.  Mini-grant funding and participatory workshops help provide motivation and direction to contingent faculty willing to participate in this program.  Faculty are presenting the outstanding results of their work locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally."  --Mary Haque, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Horticulture

From a program sponsor: "This program includes faculty development as a regular, ongoing, and thus 'naturalized' program component...It also professionalizes all of us, adjunct faculty and tenure-line faculty...This program is connected to the public in ways few programs are...This program has demonstrated its value to other constituencies and thus contributes to its own support...Changing students and changing the world: that's the Advanced Writing Program in a nutshell."  --Kathleen Blake Yancey, Former Director, Roy and Marnie Pearce Center for Professional Communication