UC Writing Conference 2016: “Reflections on the Past and Visions of the Future”

Friday, October 14, 2016 at UC Santa Barbara

As the Writing Program at UC Santa Barbara reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary as an independent writing program, we invite all UC Writing Programs to reflect on the past and the future of writing programs, rhetoric, pedagogy, and the changing university.

This year, our programs will rise to meet a number of new challenges: expanding our capacity to teach thousands more students, developing new courses and curricula in response to the changing world of digital media, and teaching more international students from more countries than ever before. We are calling for proposals that address these challenges—and any others you find relevant—and would especially like to see innovative, interactive approaches to presentations. In particular, we are thinking about

  • Mini-presentations (no more than 5 minutes per speaker) followed by in-depth panel and audience discussion
  • Workshop presentations that articulate a problem and invite audience members to participate in formulating strategies and solutions
  • Panels and presentations that represent multiple perspectives on writing in the university
  • Panels that bring together faculty from different campuses and/or include participants with different perspectives: graduate students, faculty from other disciplines, etc.
  • Panels and presentations with open questions and issues for inter-campus discussion

We are deliberately leaving the choice of subject matter for presentations a matter of broad interpretation. The topics include, but are not limited to, proposals that address:

  • Changing student populations: numbers, preparation, international and out-of-state students
  • Recent controversies regarding admission standards and preparation, especially among English language learners
  • New definitions and concepts of academic writing,
  • Historical perspectives on the changing role of rhetoric, composition, and writing programs in the UC and elsewhere
  • Evolutions of academic genres and new media
  • Instructional technology; recent developments in online and hybrid courses
  • New developments and histories of public discourse, civic debate, and community engagement

We look forward to seeing you at UC Santa Barbara on October 14.

Proposals due July 1st 

Go to the Registration page to submit a proposal 

If you’re not presenting, but would like to attend the conference, just drop us a line so we know you’re coming: donelan@writing.ucsb.edu. We’ll put you on the list and have a name tag for you.

 

All conference attendees are warmly welcome to join us for a related event: post-conference symposium on Public Speaking Across the Curriculum.