PULLMAN WSU’s Writing Program will receive the “Writing Program Certificate of Excellence” at the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) meeting in March 2009 in San Francisco.
CCCC is a national organization of researchers and teachers of college-level composition. Begun in 1949, it is part of the National Council of Teachers of English.
“The selection committee had the difficult task of choosing among an outstanding field of submissions, and the WSU Writing Program was chosen as one of the best,” said CCCC Chair Charles Bazerman in his notification letter to Writing Program co-directors Diane Kelly-Riley and Lisa Johnson-Shull.
“The program impressed the committee in a number of ways, especially its remarkably successful assessment program, its remarkable inclusiveness, and its ability to sustain its excellence in the face of change,” said Bazerman.
The new award puts the WSU Writing Program in the company of Duke University, the University of Denver, Ball State University and Carleton College, which have also received commendation for excellent university-wide writing programs. Writing programs, centers, departments, and specialty programs at just 20 universities have received CCCC certificates of excellence since they were first awarded in 2004.
The Writing Program, a unit in the WSU Office of Undergraduate Education, began in the late 1980s in response to Washington employers’ concerns with the writing skills of WSU graduates.
Under the direction of successive leaders, the program has evolved over two and one-half decades and kept in touch with changing expectations for student writers, such as the use of technology in composition and their need to communicate with international peers.
The three units of the Writing Program conduct 13,000 student writing assessments each year; grade 4,500 portfolios of best writing samples submitted by juniors; conduct workshops to help faculty design course assignments requiring writing; and provide classes to help English as a Second Language students write well to perform effectively in American classrooms. Writing Program’s peer tutors conduct annually more than 18,000 contacts and consultations with other students.
Among its other national accolades, the Writing Program has been listed among “Programs to Watch For” in rankings produced by U.S. News & World Report in its annual publication, “America’s Best Colleges.” And it received CCCC’s “Innovation Award” for 2007 for its peer tutoring program.
For more information on the WSU Writing Program, go to writingprogram.wsu.edu.
