College Writing Board

The tasks and duties of the College Writing Board, the body that administers the Writing requirement, are located in the William S. Dietrich II Institute for Writing Excellence.

Below are details about how the Writing Institute carries out the regular work of the College Writing Board.

Supporting and Approving New Writing-Intensive Courses: The Writing Institute’s website provides details about the process and required documentation for anyone who wants to propose a writing-intensive course, and the administrators are available to meet with faculty as they are drafting their proposals. The goal is to have a process that creates responsible and engaging courses across the Dietrich School and that offers faculty timely and useful feedback on their W course ideas.

Support and Accountability: The Writing Institute is developing events and resources to support teachers of writing-intensive courses or those teachers who simply want to use writing in their courses. This will include examples of assignments and other materials for writing in the disciplines. The Writing Institute will also develop strategies and mechanisms for regular review of writing-intensive courses being offered across the Dietrich School.

Assessment: The Writing Institute is responsible for regular assessment of writing instruction across the disciplines. Some assessment will happen each year, studying writing across divisions and across departments. The method of assessment will be determined by the administrators of the Writing Institute and the departments they are working with. They will also recruit other faculty expertise as needed. The Writing Institute is likely do some small-scale assessment at the department-level and some bigger assessment projects across a division to get at different kinds of information about student experiences in writing-intensive courses.

Reporting: The Writing Institute will submit reports on College Writing Board activity to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and the College of General Studies and will brief DSAS Undergraduate Council and solicit their input and suggestions.

Starting in 2022, the Writing Institute will conduct a full review of the writing requirement as it is enacted in the disciplines. The Writing Institute will review currently used teaching materials and meet with teachers in departments in order to better understand how writing is taught and what kinds of writing might best serve students. The goals of this process are to consider whether the current requirements for W courses are a good fit for all departments and to see if departments and their students are satisfied with the current teaching of writing.