Maid, Barry. “Working Outside of English.” The Longman Sourcebook for Writing Program Administrators. New York: Pearson, Inc., 2008. 39-41.
In this excerpt of Maid’s essay, he describes two particular constraints on the administration of “independent” writing programs: “reporting lines” and “status.” Drawing upon examples of particular program structures, such as GSU’s and Wisconsin’s, Maid claims that writing programs have often existed outside of English Departments, and that certain “problems” such as confusion as to status and reporting lines, can emerge from this situation.
Interestingly, Maid (like Dobrin) sees “the answer” to WPA problems in terms of gaining full-fledged, traditional acceptance from other “programs” and their academic faculty: “…in the best of al possible worlds, an independent writing unit would be a full-fledged academic department that would grant degrees (whether they would be graduate and undergraduate or only undergraduate would depend on the mission of the institution.) If the unit is a fully acknowledged academic department, it will most likely be led by a chair or head and, because of the nature of writing programs, have several other subadministrators who report to the chair” (39).
Page 40: “The status and cooperation an independent program might find with in the academic structure of an institution may be partly determined by reporting lines. In order for the staff of an independent writing program to work effectively across campus, the staff must be perceived by the campus faculty at large as having viable academic status with in academic affairs.” In other words, faculty respect faculty, not “professional staff.” Professors and secretaries. So in order to be effective, it would be best to staff writing programs with faculty? This seems to ignore the problem of contingent faculty, which, as Maid acknowledges, often boasts PhD or other advanced degree. I just mean to say that the line isn’t clear.
Really useful for, I would think, anyone relatively new to the “problem” of FYC is Maid’s distinguishing of the terms “professional staff” and “faculty” and delineation of the relationship between the two concepts. Maid implies the goal is to “maintain the denial” that professors are not teachers (not service-workers) (45). His entire discussion, really, seems to call into question the perceived value of “the Professor” in the eyes of “academic culture” in general and individual professors. (See post re: Mark Bauerlein’s article “What’s the Point of a Professor?”)
Questions:
- What does it mean for the “staffing of a writing program…[to be]…an economic, not an academic issue?(42) (And does identifying the problem in these terms make Dobrin’s argument moot?)
- What would an “ideal” Writing Center look like at GSU? Budgetarily? In terms of reporting lines? Why?
- What are the implications of this claim: “the proffesoriate is a service profession in denial”? (45)
- How can the digital revolution help
“the proffesoriate” reevaluate itself? Can it? - What is the implication of the claim that “No program can survive around one person’s vision” in the context of an egocentric “professoriate”? (46)
Leave a Reply