wpa philosophy
writing program administration-as-research
In my life outside of academia, I have over twelve years of office administration experience, which contributes to my ability to be organized and efficient, and provides many of the skills I need as an administrator. But what makes a truly successful Writing Program Administrator is not skills learned or applied from a business model. Rather, being able to theorize writing program administration through writing pedaogogies is essential. Using my background in English literature, Composition, Digital and Cultural Rhetorics and Professional Writing, Writing Center Pedagogy, and Teaching English as a Second Language, I am able to theorize my work from these perspectives to see writing program administration as a combination of research, administration, teaching, and service. Within this combination, writing program administration requires many roles: visionary, leader, collaborator, advocate, mentor, facilitator, innovator, and above all, scholar. It is through these perspectives and myriad roles that I approach my writing program administration at WSU.
I believe that the most effective Writing Program Administrator is one who can not only weather change, growth, and transition within his or her institution and, indeed, academe itself, but who can consistently embrace these as opportunities for positive change, and who will step into leadership roles to effect that change. My ability to inhabit such leadership roles derives from my ability to theorize WPA work as scholarship, employing my disciplinary expertise to inform and perform my work. As Ernest Boyer notes, "To be considered scholarship, service activities must be tied directly to one's special field of knowledge and relate to, and flow directly out of, this professional activity. Such service is serious, demanding work, requiring the rigor—and the accountability—traditionally associated with research activities"1 (22). Specific examples of this administration-as-scholarship include the development of a vision and goals for the Tri-Cities campus that are consistent with the land grant mission and research agenda of our institution, and with the English Department in which I work. The daily activity, decision making, and leadership I exhibit through my position all require extensive institutional research and assessment, ongoing conversations about writing with directors and faculty across many disciplines, and must all be informed by best practices and theoretical foundations in Rhetoric and Composition writ large.
However, it is not enough to merely claim that my administrative service activities such as program creation and implementation, curricular design, faculty development, and assessment and evaluation count as scholarship because they are informed and shaped by my disciplinary expertise. To truly count as scholarship, both the theory and the practice of my administrative activities must also contribute to the scholarship of Rhetoric, Composition, and/or Administration. In my position a the Praxis section editor at Kairos, I regularly contribute to the field by shaping and selecting the scholarship we publish at the nexus of writing, rhetorical theory, practice, and technology. Furthermore, all of my own scholarly publications are deeply informed by administration-as-scholarship, whether that take the form of institutional critique, issues of mentoring and professionalization, understanding the role of institution histories, or of digital pedagogies.
