CAS to require writing classes

Next year's College of Arts and Sciences freshman class will have to fulfill a writing requirement in order to graduate, University faculty members said last night. The requirement has been in the planning stages for about five years, and was finally adopted last spring, according to Peshe Kuriloff, director of Writing Across the University. "I'm extremely excited about the program," Kuriloff said last week. The requirement can be satisfied in four ways, but is most easily fulfilled by passing specific freshman English courses which have an intensive writing component, according to Kent Peterman, executive assistant to the associate dean for the College. The University also currently offers non-English "writing lab classes" which allow students for additional credit to attend special recitations or labs with intensive writing requirements in addition to the regular lecture. These classes will also satisfy the new writing requirement. The writing lab courses are an approach to "teaching writing in context" according to Peterman. He said this approach "doesn't divorce writing from the substance matter." A student who passes two courses affiliated with the WATU program will also satisfy the new requirement. In addition, the faculty is currently developing writing seminars which will also allow satisfy the new requirement. These new courses which, according to Peterman, "are not just for freshmen" are expected to begin next year. Alice Kelley, associate professor and undergraduate chairperson of the English department, said that the program is "a good start" in response to an "extremely uneven pattern of preparation in freshman English classes." She added that good writing skills allow for "a better shot at doing college-level work." "College is a continuation of the things one learns in high school," Kelly said last night. "It is important not just to write grammar but to show that you are thinking and can sustain an argument." The requirement was first agreed upon in 1987 when the general requirements were originally passed, according to Peterman. But the writing requirement was never enacted. In the spring, 1991 a committee proposed a plan to implement the writing requirement in Fall 1993. The committee allowed time for the University to develop courses that will fulfill the requirement.