College faculty hope to revamp, universalize writing programs

The College's Agenda for Excellence" proposes an expanded advising program and a University-wide writing requirement Complying with the College of Arts and Sciences's five-year "Agenda for Excellence" initiative released Monday, the College plans to reorganize its writing program to promote a "culture of writing" at the University. Under this plan, a newly created English Writing Program will incorporate the Freshman English and the Writing Across the University programs. English Professor and WATU Director Peshe Kuriloff said combining WATU and Freshman English will create a more unified writing program. "We need to pull things together to be more systematic and consistent," she said. Additionally, the College plans to expand its writing advising and apprenticeship seminars to promote writing within departments, according to English Professor Al Filreis, faculty director of the Writing Program. In the fall, the Classical Studies and Folklore departments will adopt the apprenticeship seminar model currently used by the English and Philosophy departments -- which hold senior faculty members responsible for seminars designed to coach graduate students who instruct freshman writing classes. Art History Chairperson Michael Meister said that although most Art History graduate students are trained by the WATU program outside of the department, he would be willing to institute guided apprenticeship programs if given the opportunity. The College also plans to expand the Writing Advisors program to encompass all 11 undergraduate residential communities. WATU advisors are currently available from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday at Hill House, McClelland Hall and the Writers House. And for late night writing problems, Electronic Writing Advising will provide help to undergraduates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "We know that students write between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.," Filreis said. "Anyone among the 10,000 undergraduates can write at e-mail address writeme@english.upenn.edu and receive information within a few hours about transitions, rhetoric and writing style," he added. Kuriloff said she hopes the College of General Studies will offer personal essay classes over the Internet to high school students all over the country. Another new initiative consists of a College-sponsored writing requirement to be mandated across the University. The College, the School of Nursing and the Wharton School already require writing-intensive courses. And the faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will vote within the next few weeks to include a writing requirement as part of its "Social Sciences and Humanities" distributional requirement. "If Engineering passes [the requirement] we will have the first academic requirement across the four schools," Filreis said. Undergraduates expressed excitement at these changes. English major and College senior Ben Saul said the changes are "a tremendous step for the University." "Writing is integral to being a fully- functional member of society," Saul said. "Creating a 'culture of writing' within the University will benefit a lot of students, especially non-English majors." And Engineering freshman Michael Sherick said he would take advantage of electronic advising. "I know that I always write papers late at night, and it would be helpful," he said.