Committee on Writing In the Disciplines / Writing Across the Curriculum (WID/WAC)

TO: Academic Senate Steering Committee

FROM: Professor John Talbird, Chair

SUBJECT: Annual Report for 2018-2019

DATE: May 29, 2019

Membership

Officers:

John Talbird, English, Chairperson (2020)

Raymond Lam, Engineering Technology, Secretary (2020)

Members:

Daniel Garbin, Math and Computer Science (2019)

Scott Litroff, Music (2019)

Areti Tsimounis, Biological Sciences and Geology (2019)

Elizabeth DiGiorgio, Art & Design (2020)

Jeff Hall, History (2021)

Chris Mooney, Business (2021)

Ian Schanning, Physics (2021)

Student Representative:

Sanjay Koul

Liaisons:

David Humphries, Academic Affairs, Interim Assistant Dean of Faculty

Committee Meetings

The Committee met three times during the school year, 10/10/18, 2/13/19, and 5/15/19. (The minutes for the first two meetings will be available presently on the website; the minutes for the 5/15 meeting will be available pending their approval at the fall 2019 meeting.) The committee acknowledges the service of the secretary, Ray Lam.

Outline of the Committee Work

• Four waiver applications were submitted in the course of the year. The committee reviewed supporting documents and transcripts and voted to grant two of the waivers and deny the other two. Note: This number of waivers is significantly down from previous years, what seems to be a testament to the departments', the administration's, and the WID/WAC program's work to make sure that all WI courses are taught by a WI-certified instructor. All four of these waivers were due to transfer issues.
• In answer to the sixth bylaw charge—"Insure through a certification and recertification process that all classes designated as WI meet the criteria for a WI class”—the committee ran a pilot program this spring, reviewing existing WI courses—their syllabi, writing assignments, and rubrics (referred to as “packet” below). This is the first time in the 20-year history of WID/WAC at QCC where a review of this scope has taken place and I would like to acknowledge the significant extra work that all of the committee members undertook for this project.

1.     An assessment checklist was composed and revised by the committee. This was later submitted to the participants as a rubric to help them know what they would be evaluated on.

2.     At the 2/13/19 meeting, committee members normed sample packets so that we could be on the same page when individually assessing submissions.

3.     80 packets were solicited from QCC faculty. The committee decided not to review faculty certified in the past three years (unless they requested it) since we speculated that more-recently trained faculty would be more likely to follow good writing pedagogy. This made the number of packets less arduous for committee members. Each member evaluated between 6-8 packets. (In addition to committee members, David Humphries of OAA, Elise Denbo and Bob Donley of the WID/WAC staff, and Henry Davis of CETL evaluated documents. There extra help and input was valuable and much appreciated.) Of the 80 solicited, 65 were submitted. Due to some late submissions of evaluations, we don't have a final number for how many faculty were approved and how many unapproved. I hope to be able to report a final result by the fall of 2019.

4.     Most faculty have been notified by David Humphries whether their course was approved or not by the committee. Non-approval will not remove the “W” designation from these courses. It is not determined yet what steps will be taken after a course receives “non-approval.” Incidentally, some faculty who received “non-approval” have already made revisions and resubmitted. Others realized that their applications were not complete or didn't come with enough context for committee members to accurately assess. It's believed that the number of approved will increase over the summer. In addition, the administration has agreed that WI faculty may take a stipend-supported refresher course if they get “non-approval” and feel that they need the extra support.

• In our final meeting (5/15/19), our new members joined us: Sanjay Koul (Biological Sciences and Geology), Chris Leary (English), and Rommel Robertson (Social Sciences). The committee would like to acknowledge the work of the outgoing members: Daniel Garbin (Math & Computer Science), Scott Litroff (Music), and Areti Tsimounis (Biological Sciences and Geology).
• John Talbird and Ray Lam were both re-elected to another term as Chair and Secretary, respectively. The chair reminded the committee that both he and Ray would be leaving the committee at the end of the 2019-2020 school year and that other committee members would have to step forward and take over. They both offered to help others transition into these roles.

2019-2020

In addition to the regular work of the committee, there are a couple of other issues that we want to address in the coming year.

• Only one waiver petition didn't receive a unanimous vote this year. A transfer student who received a “D” in a WI course at another school wanted to waive the requirement here. A majority voted to deny the transfer, but the two who voted in favor of it made strong arguments: They felt that sense our registrar gives WI credit for students who receive “D”s here that we should honor transfer “D”s also. It was decided that we would revisit this in the fall and decide whether we want to make official a minimum grade achievement for WI transfer classes or not.
• As already expressed, we hope to have all of our results in from the pilot review program in the fall. We need to address several questions:

1. How often do we want to do engage in this review process? Will this be an annual activity for this committee and, if so, should it be written into the charges?
2. When a faculty member's course is approved, how long until the next time he or she is reviewed?
3. When the course is not approved, what will be the consequences?
4. When faculty neglect to submit their syllabi/assignments (as 15 did this year), what will be the consequences, if any? And if it is optional for faculty to submit, then why would any? (Note: In the 2017-2018 school year, the WID/WAC committee requested faculty to voluntarily submit WI syllabi for informal review. 0 faculty participated.)
5. Will “non-approved” WI faculty either resubmit acceptable materials and/or take stipend-supported refresher training in WID/WAC? And if not, will they be allowed to continue teaching WI courses?
6. What parts do department chairs play in making sure that all WI faculty under their supervision are trained and up-to-date on current senate-approved WI pedagogy?