How would your studies and / or your professional experiences advance the goals of WPA-GO? These goals may be found in the About Me section of WPA-GO’s website: http://wpacouncil.org/wpa-go (no more than 150 words) *
My recent work in teaching FYC works to engage students in a variety of writing while also challenging socially constructed views of personhood, particular in relation to privilege and power. As the WPA-GO strives to address writing program administration and writing instruction through lenses of social justice, I wish to continue this kind of work to ensure a quality of future WPA work. I have served as summer FSE (First and Second Year English) intern working on projects such as updating our teaching manual for GTAs and assisting in the orientation of incoming GTAs. Additionally, I have served on departmental committees that engaged in updating our textbook for FYC, arranging a Writers Faire to showcase student work, and working to raise funds for my department’s graduate organization. I hope to make additional connections between this kind of work in my department with other graduate students in the organization.
What kinds of support do you value as a graduate student and how would you further those forms of support for others through WPA-GO? (no more than 250 words) *
As a graduate student, I value honest perspectives on experience and workload. I appreciate when the administrative work is demystified through engaged discussion, concrete examples, and hands-on work in a department through committee work and internships. Having never served on committees before this past academic year, the process of being on a committee was overwhelming at first and I think that through WPA-GO, we can spread the word of the good work that this organization can do and the sort of relationships it can foster. Having a variety of support while working in graduate school can extend beyond our time as grad students, and bringing new people into the organization and it is important to offer them information for them to understand how committees and writing programs work within a department.
CWPA pledges to “foster inclusion more generally; 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 these goals? Please answer this question by choosing one barrier you identify to meeting these goals in writing studies. How would your work within WPA-GO specifically address this barrier? (no more than 500 words) *
I’ve only scratched the surface of working toward a socially just future, and though I’ve done a bit of work in the classroom to advance this goal. Through my selection to the WPA-GO graduate committee, I can continue to work to advance goals to challenge institutional injustices through discussion with other members on ways that we can work together now to bring these inclusive practices into programs after we are no longer graduate students.
