In their new collection, Writing Program Architecture: Thirty Cases for Reference and Research,
Bryna Siegel Finer (English) and co-editor Jamie White-Farnham (University of Wisconsin–Superior) explain, “The metaphor of architecture allows us to imagine the constituent parts of a writing program as its foundation, beams, posts, scaffolding—the
institutional structures that, alongside its people, anchor a program to the ground and keep it standing.”
The most extensive resource on program structure available to the field, Writing Program Architecture
illuminates structural choices made by leaders of exemplary programs around the United States and provides an authoritative source of standard practice that a WPA might use to articulate programmatic choices to higher administration. Presenting
the realities of thirty diverse and award-winning programs, contributors to the volume describe reporting lines, funding sources, jurisdictions, curricula, and other critical programmatic matters and provide insight into their program histories, politics,
and philosophies.
Each chapter opens with a program snapshot that includes summary demographic and historical information and then addresses the profile of the WPA, program conception, population served, funding, assessment, technology, curriculum, and more. An online
web companion to the book includes access to the primary documents that have been of major importance to the development or sustainability of the program, described in a “Primary Document” section of each chapter, as well as original essays written
in response to the book by contributors and other teacher-scholars in writing studies.
Featuring a chapter by IUP Kathleen Jones White Writing Center Director Ben Rafoth, Writing Program Architecture will be available
from Utah State University Press at the end of October.
What Others Are Saying About the Book:
"One of the most challenging aspects of being a writing program administrator is the perpetual need to come up with creative, strategic, and practical solutions to a wide range of issues. In many ways, WPAs are problem solvers. Writing Program Architecture
offers the kinds of resources, reference material, and logistical information that WPAs need to come up with those solutions—proven options that have worked in specific local contexts. As a WPA, I will be turning to this volume repeatedly for new
ideas for the program I direct, knowing that I am drawing on the wisdom and collective experience of some of the most well-respected scholars and program in the field."
—Susan Miller-Cochran, University of Arizona, Council of Writing Program Administrators Immediate Past President
“The book will be tremendously useful to WPAs at all stages in their careers. . . . Because it is such a unique contribution to WPA literature, many readers may find themselves thinking that they didn’t realize they needed a resource like this, but they
will be very glad to have it.”
—Pegeen Reichert Powell, Columbia College Chicago
Department of English