Question: CWPA pledges “to promote research into student diversities; promote policies that increase diversity in our membership and in the population of people who administer writing programs; and explicitly act against the structures that cause injustice today,” and WPA-GO is dedicated to supporting this mission. How will your selection to the WPA-GO Graduate Committee advance this goal?

This is Kelly Moreland's headshot. Kelly sits in front of a book shelf in an office. She is wearing a pink cardigan over a grey t-shirt.

Kelly Moreland: If elected to the Graduate Committee I would advance CWPA and WPA-GO’s goal to promote diversity, inclusion, and justice first by continuing in the steps of prior and current members who are working toward this goal. The Graduate Committee’s current work of ratifying our bylaws to be more inclusive is one large step, I believe, toward upholding this mission. As a new member of the GC I would be committed not only to learning from our new bylaws and the processes by which they were ratified, but I would look forward to taking steps to ensure we put our words into action. The best place to begin this work is perhaps at home, within our organization. My interest in a position on the Graduate Committee stems from a drive to ensure that we celebrate diversity and promote justice additionally across our platforms–from our by-laws, to our conference presence and events, to our social media presence. We are certainly working toward this goal already. The Digital Presence Committee, for example, has discussed beginning an initiative where we would feature a WPA-GO member in order to celebrate her or his contributions to GO and to the field. Celebrating diversity would be integral to this initiative, as we discussed mainly representing people of color and women. As a member of the GC, I would be excited to continue these and similar conversations and to work to make such initiatives a reality for our organization.