Looking at faculty writing groups from within: some insights for their sustainability and future implementations (original) (raw)

Writing in Action: Scholarly Writing Groups as Faculty Development

2011

The authors trace the five-year development and implementation of scholarly writing groups at a public, teaching-oriented university. They describe the experiences and outcomes of faculty writers via the personal accounts of three participants, presented through the lenses of the directors of the University Writing Center and the Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI). Using modest resources, writing groups thrive because they efficiently serve all stakeholders: faculty members get much needed support for their scholarly writing; facilitators (writing center professionals) learn about writing across disciplines; the CFI meets its mission of supporting faculty scholarship, and the university benefits from an enhanced academic culture. Another outcome is helping faculty identify with student experiences and, as a result, improving teaching and writing across the curriculum.

Faculty Writing Groups for Writing Center Professionals: Rethinking Scholarly Productivity

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 2023

In this article, we discuss how participating in a writing group during and after the COVID-19 pandemic helped us reimagine what scholarly productivity means for us as writing center professionals (WCPs). Drawing on our experiences in an online writing group for almost three years with WCPs from four different institutions, we identify three themes that emerged across our experiences: (1) writing center work as scholarly and intellectual; (2) professionalization and mentoring; and (3) social support. Identifying these themes made visible for us a broader notion of scholarly productivity. It also helped us think more strategically about the complex and layered work we do as WCPs as we consistently juggle competing work demands. We hope this article can help WCPs not only re-conceive what it means to be productive as writing center scholars but also to integrate a broad range of scholarly work more fully into what they are already doing.

Academic Writing Groups in Higher Education: History and State of Play

International Journal of Higher Education, 2021

Over the past twenty years, graduate studies have seen significant growth, with student numbers more than doubling worldwide. Unfortunately, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development continues to report dropout rates averaging 50% for PhD and 40% for master’s programs, in all disciplines combined. Among the reasons quoted for abandoning study programs are deficient academic writing competencies that could not only hinder how graduate students progress through their academic journey, but also how they integrate with the scientific community as novice scholars. Accordingly, this article will present an overview of studies related to academic writing groups, which have been identified as one of the strategies to benefit graduate studies. Based on a systematic literature review, we present a chronological account of key issues and concepts that have influenced the phenomenon throughout history. Thereafter, we explain the various characteristics of academic writing group...