Hostos Community College/CUNY and Hunter College/, New York (United States)

“The City University of New York: The Implementation and Impact of WAC/WID in a Multi-Campus US Urban University” By Linda Hirsch and Dennis Paoli

This profile examines the ongoing WAC initiative at the City University of New York, the largest public urban higher education institution in the US and among the most diverse in students’ languageand cultural backgrounds. The essay provides an overview of WAC at CUNY’s 23 campuses, including description of its unique Writing Fellows program, which employs PhD candidates from across disciplines. The authors give special focus to the implementation and impact of WAC principles and practices at two campuses: Hostos Community College, an urban, bilingual community college located in the south Bronx, one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods; and Hunter College, a senior college in mid-Manhattan with graduate programs and four professional graduate schools drawing students from throughout the City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

University of California, Davis, California (United States)

“Writing at UC Davis: Writing in Disciplines and Professions from the Undergraduate First Year through Graduate School” By Chris Thaiss and Gary Goodman

Writing at this public research university—the largest among the ten campuses of the University of California—is taught in ways that reflect the university’s “land-grant” mission. Our academic writing courses and writing-support activities serve tertiary and post-graduate students from more than 100 disciplines and from highly-diverse language and cultural backgrounds. While this profile describes ways that most academic departments contribute to our students’ writing development, we pay particular attention to the several roles, some long established and some new, of the University Writing Program (UWP), an independent department devoted to academic writing across disciplines and professions. We illustrate how UC Davis has re-interpreted the US model of “general education” to spread attention to student writing not only across disciplines but also vertically throughout the tertiary years and into services for PhD students from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and agriculture. A PhD research emphasis in writing studies is also described, as is the Writing Minor for baccalaureate students.