16th Annual Fall Conference to take place September 11-13, 2023…CFP available!

We are proud to announce that the 16th Fall Conference of the Carolinas Writing Program Administrators will take place September 11-13, 2023 at the Wildacres Retreat Center, centering on the theme Homecoming: Finding a place for renewal in the profession.

Click here for a call for proposals and more information about the conference. When you’re ready to submit a proposal, please complete this form.

See the PayPal button below for means to submit a payment. (Note that the cost of the conference is $210 for students and NTT faculty and $220 for TT faculty; the cost includes a year of membership in the organization.)

If you have questions about the conference, please contact Carolinas WPA President Shawn Bowers at bowerss@queens.edu.

Registrant status
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Registration and CFP for the 2023 Meeting in the Middle is now available!

Our 17th Annual Meeting in the Middle will take place in person from at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 3, 2023. Please see the CFP below for more information. You can register and submit a proposal to present using this Google Form and submit a payment by visiting this website and selecting the “BOGO” option. Registration is $30 and, as in years past, this is a “Buy One/Get One” cost, covering two persons’ conference registration and membership in Carolinas WPA.


When: March 3, 2023, 10:00am EST (full schedule to come)

Where: UNC Charlotte, Center City Campus 320 E 9th St., Charlotte, NC 28202

We are beyond thrilled to announce that this year’s Carolinas WPA Meeting in the Middle Conference will be held in person! We return to UNCC’s beautiful uptown campus in Charlotte, and we invite you to join us (CFP details below). Our keynote speaker this year is Kevin Gannon. 

About our keynote speaker: Kevin Gannon is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence and Professor of History at Queens University Of Charlotte, in North Carolina. He is the author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto, published in April, 2020, as part of the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education series from West Virginia University press. He is a regular contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education, and his work has appeared in outlets such as VoxCNN, and The Washington Post. In 2016, he appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay. You can find Kevin online at his blog, thetattooedprof.com, and on Twitter: @TheTattoedProf

Keynote Presentation:  “Sustaining Communities of Hope”

It might seem perverse to talk about something like “Sustaining Communities of Hope” in our current context, shaped as it is by racism, violence, economic dislocation, political rancor, and—oh, by the way—a global pandemic. In higher education, we find ourselves in an environment of crisis, in teaching and learning spaces that are unfamiliar to many of us and significantly more difficult for all of us. This session WILL NOT talk about “silver linings” or “making the most of the new normal.” In fact, one of the crucial elements of acting with hope is an honest acknowledgement that “normal times” were unsatisfactory and unsustainable. The session will, however, offer some avenues to ground our pedagogy in an ethic of hope, as opposed to a program dictated by fear. In doing so, this session will also critically interrogate the current fascination with “innovation” in higher ed, and think about ways to reclaim that discussion for meaningful, sustainable teaching and learning. 

Conference Theme: In the pandemic, we reached for technology to help us adapt to the new landscapes of learning as classes went from an embodied experience in a classroom to modalities that embraced both synchronous and asynchronous online spaces. We hi-flexed, we hybrid-ed, we pivoted so, so many times! With that memory still very fresh in our minds, we introduce you to this year’s conference theme:

Beyond Resilience: Moving from Reactive to Sustainable Spaces 

How do we process our experiences of the last two years and use what we learned to create sustainable teaching practices?

The global pandemic created such upheaval in academia, and institutions everywhere scrambled to react to unprecedented times. Faculty and staff embraced new technologies, proving we can learn new tricks. But this was all done in reactive space–adjusting the ship to traverse the uncharted waters we found ourselves navigating. It seems we’ve docked on dry land now, after three years braving the wilds. Only now are we reckoning with the collective and individual trauma of the last three years. In processing what we’ve come through, we have an opportunity to consider what kind of learning spaces we want to usher in. We have an opportunity to reframe innovation, think less about the fancy tools we want to use, and focus on ways to bolster sustainability in our programs and courses. How do we take the lessons learned from the pandemic and develop teaching strategies that can weather future storms?

Carolinas WPA welcomes proposals that address this topic, share ideas, insights, reflections that inspire us to process, to move away from reactive spaces into sustainable landscapes. How do you reconsider technology and innovation? What strategies position us to deliver quality instruction regardless of external factors?

We welcome proposals for traditional presentations, where presenters share pedagogies, ideas, experiences from the field. These individual or group/panel presentations are slated for 45-60 minutes total.

Returning this year will be roundtable discussion proposals–you might not have material to present in a traditional sense, but you might be interested in leading, or at least starting, a conversation about a particular issue relating to this question. We’re planning to organize the day based on conceptual groupings for discussion.

To help with considerations for potential discussion concerns, we’ve provided a few broad topics/ideas, but you’re more than welcome to suggest your own. Roundtable discussions are expected to run for roughly 45-60 minutes. 

  •  “How do I leverage technologies used during online modalities now that we’re back in person?”
  • “I’d like to learn what HIPs (High Impact Practices)  others are seeing success with.” 
  • “I’ve made the switch to upgrading, but hitting some road bumps. . I’d love to talk shop with others and trade strategies.” 

Deadline: 11:59pm, Feb. 10th, 2023

We are excited to offer BOGO registration this year for all participants: $30 for two attendees: the registration fee for the paying applicant also covers the cost of annual membership dues for both attendees. To register for the conference, please complete this form AND THEN visit the following page, where you can select the “BOGO” registration for a pair of registrants: http://www.carolinaswpa.org/join-carolinas-wpa/. (If you are registering more than two persons, please be sure to submit a BOGO payment for each pair of registrants.)

Want to bring a TA or graduate student? We might have funds to offset or waive the registration fee. Please email bowerss@queens.edu to inquire about this offer. 

More information about the event and the Carolinas WPA organization can be found at https://www.carolinaswpa.org; Questions about the event can be sent to Shawn Bowers at bowerss@queens.edu. Questions about registration/payment specifically can be sent to Patrick Bahls at patrick.bahls@gmail.com.

2021 Carolinas WPA Meeting in the Middle Call for Proposals and Participants

Carolinas Writing Program Administrators is delighted to announced that our 15th Annual Meeting in the Middle will take place from 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, February 19, 2021. Please see the CFP below for more information. You can register by completing this Google FormRegistration is free; however, we encourage all attendees to support Carolinas WPA by renewing their membership to the organization ($20/year for full-time TT faculty and $10/year for other faculty and students). Follow this link to renew your membership. Visit the Carolinas WPA homepage to learn more about the organization.

Teaching, Writing, and Administrating in the time of Corona: Building and Maintaining Community in Remote Spaces

It is an obvious understatement to say that this past year has been tremendously difficult–heartbreaking, overwhelming, unpredictable, seemingly unending–and we’ve all been affected in different ways by events local and (inter)national alike. Trying to figure out how we can forge ahead as writing teachers, scholars, and administrators–if not maintain or reduce our expectations for what we’ve been able to achieve in the midst of everything that’s happened–might well seem like yet another insurmountable obstacle.

To work through these dilemmas, Carolinas WPA invites you to a virtual session of our annual Meeting in the Middle conference for a day of coming together to share resources and ideas, to strategize collaboratively, and to socialize with treasured friends, old and new alike. We want to learn: how have we worked and fought to sustain ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities throughout it all? How might we continue to do so?

Participants are not obligated to attend with any particular ideas or questions in mind to address, but we want to provide plenty of opportunity to work through some helpful and important issues that impact each of us, both in general and in this particular moment.

If you would like to have some time dedicated to presenting information about a project you’ve been working on or to discussing a particular question/issue you’d like feedback on, we can make sure that happens! Alternatively, if you just want to log in to say hello to friends you might not have had the chance to see or talk to for a year, that would be absolutely great, too!

Registration is completely free — we’ll send the Zoom info to registered participants as we get closer to the date of the event. Also, while registration is free, this could be an excellent opportunity for you to join or renew your membership in Carolinas WPA to help support the organization. Click here to renew your membership!

Questions about the event can be sent to brockkm2@mailbox.sc.edu.

Kevin Brock

President, Carolinas Writing Program Administrators

A message from Carolinas WPA President Paula Patch re: Wildacres 2020

Dear Carolinas WPA Members and Friends:

After some discussion, Collie, Kevin, and I have decided that it is best to go ahead and make a decision about Wildacres. We think that waiting until later is simply putting off the inevitable: The uncertainty of the virus makes it impossible to hold a face-to-face conference in September. We have decided to cancel Wildacres for 2020.

Even if we were able to gather, we fear that the demands on our members in the “next normal” of the fall semester, the instability of funding, and the very real danger for some of us to be in close quarters with others would make the retreat feel like too much of an obligation—or too much an occasion to feel real FOMO—for our members.

We will be in touch later in the summer about options for gathering virtually in the summer or fall—not so much to replace Wildacres, the magic of which is its in-person, off-grid, retreat nature—but to support one another as we make and implement tough decisions about our programs and communities.

Take good care—we’ll see each other as soon as it is possible!

Paula

2020 Carolinas WPA Meeting in the Middle: CFP and event information

Conference theme: Language, Translingualism, and Multilingualism

We are excited to send out this call for proposals to present at the Carolinas Writing Program Administrators’ fourteenth annual spring conference, “Meeting in the Middle,” to be held from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on February 14, 2020, at UNC Charlotte.

Our theme for the meeting is language, particularly translingualism and multilingualism, and how the complex systems of meaning we use to communicate inform our composing practices as well as the teaching thereof.

How do students employ their languages and literacies in different situations and environments? For that matter, how are we doing so? How can we recognize and discuss code-switching, code-meshing, and translanguaging as they relate across a variety of contexts? How can we help our students, and learn with them, about how to do so in more rhetorically effective fashions?

Jennifer Eidum from Elon University will present a morning workshop that presents key theories of translingualism and multilingualism as they play out in higher education, with particular focus on first-year writing classrooms. Then, we will shift from theory to practice, exploring specific linguistic & cultural challenges WPAs and writing faculty might encounter in writing spaces (including their own). With an emphasis on collaboration and community-building, participants will leave the workshop with resources, connections, and new ideas for recognizing (and building upon) the linguistic and cultural diversity in their writing programs.

Time will be provided for participants to begin planning activities and assignments for their courses and/or to sketch out structures for relevant language-focused faculty workshops or projects.

Proposal Details

Proposal Deadline: Wednesday, January 29, 2020. We have a quick turnaround and presenters will be notified by Monday, February 3, in order to have as much time as possible to make travel arrangements.

You do not have to present to attend! We welcome you regardless! That said, those whose proposals are accepted will be listed on the formal agenda for the conference–which might help you advocate for travel funding. Proposals will also help us plan appropriate groups and design activities around members’ goals.

We encourage both individual and team proposals from people in the Carolinas who are working in any teaching or administrative positions related to writing. We also welcome creative interpretation, and deviation, from this year’s theme.

Three different presentation types reflect members’ interests:

  1. Problem: Describe a teaching, program leadership, or research problem that you would like help thinking about with other attendees. 10-15 minutes includes feedback time.
  2. Showcase: Share a teaching method or writing program leadership strategy that is working well at your site. Or present findings from a study you’re involved in that would interest writing teachers and WPAs. 10-15 minutes includes feedback time.
  3. Other: You have an idea that doesn’t fit either category. Explain! You still have 10-15 minutes to present.

Proposals should include:

  • Name and contact information (email, phone, home institution) for each person associated with your proposal
  • Type of presentation (problem, showcase, other)
  • Title and brief description of your presentation for the conference agenda
  • Your specific goals for presenting

Please use this proposal form.

Registration

The registration price of $40.00 includes lunch and the opportunity to bring a guest for free (who also gets lunch!). Parking options are limited near the building (see “Parking” below). Carpooling is encouraged!

The registration deadline is Friday, February 7, 2020. Registration is now open on the Carolinas WPA website.

When you “bring a guest for free,” you must register the guest when you register yourself.

Parking

In the past, attendees had the option to purchase event parking passes as part of conference registration. Unfortunately, event parking is currently unavailable, although there are several pay-to-park options nearby. From the UNC Charlotte Center City website:

“Due to construction and other activity surrounding UNC Charlotte Center City, parking is extremely limited. The parking lots adjacent to Center City (422 E. 9th Street and 319 E. 9th Street) are currently reserved for faculty, staff and students with a University-issued parking permit.  Please encourage visitors to prepare and plan for their visit to Center City, including consideration of carpooling and ride services.”

“Visitor parking for events is currently not available. There are a number of pay-to-park options within walking distance of Center City.  Seventh Street Parking Deck is a short walk through First Ward Park. Visitors can pay to park by the hour. Additional pay-to-park options can be found on the Preferred Parking website. The closest of these is 422 E 9th Street on the corner of 9th and Brevard Street. Other nearby lots are at 8th & College, 9th & College, and 9th & Tryon. There are metered spaces on Brevard and 8th Street to pay during the day. These meters are free after 6pm weekdays and all day on weekends.”

Map (in .png image form) of parking options in the Center City vicinity.

Hotels

Google map of hotels near the conference.

Questions or comments? Direct them to Kevin Brock at brockkm2@mailbox.sc.edu.

Carolinas WPA Fall 2018 Conference CANCELLED due to Hurricane Florence

The following is a message from Carolinas WPA President, Collie Fulford.

 

Dear Carolinas WPA members, conference presenters, and other participants:

 

It is with everyone’s safety in mind that the board and I have decided to cancel the conference at Wildacres that was planned from September 17-19.

 

We yield to the urgency of Hurricane Florence.

 

After the storm has passed we will determine whether we can attempt a new fall date at Wildacres or whether to wait until our spring conference to reconvene.  We will reimburse all conference fees if we are unable to reschedule, and we will of course refund any who cannot attend during a new date.

 

I appreciate all of the hard work of the board, the presenters, our keynote and workshop leaders, and the Wildacres staff as we prepared for this conference.  Right now it is simply more important to prepare for the storm.

 

Be safe, friends.  I hope to have more specifics for registrants next week about new plans to learn from and support each other in writing leadership.

 

Collie

 

Important announcement regarding 2018 Wildacres Conference (September 17-19)

Following is an important note from our current President about our upcoming fall conference (September 17-19):

The Wildacres staff and the Carolinas WPA board are keeping an eye on the forecast for Hurricane Florence.

 

Please look for an email update by Thursday, September 13 regarding the status of our fall conference in light of this storm.

 

If we decide to cancel or postpone the conference, more details will follow on Thursday.

 

If we decide to hold the conference on the current dates, we will honor individual decisions about whether to travel or not. Those who cannot attend will receive a full registration refund. (Reminder: Monday, September 10 is the last day to register.)

 

Many thanks for your patience as we await more weather information.

 

Collie Fulford

Registration now open for the 2018 Carolinas Writing Program Administrators fall conference

We are pleased to announce that registration for the 2018 Carolinas WPA fall conference at Wildacres is now open. You may visit the fall conference website to learn more about the conference and to find links to registration for single persons or up to five persons at a time.

 

Please note that this year’s conference fee is either $210 or $220 per person, depending on the registrant’s status, and long-sleeve T-shirts commemorating Carolinas WPA’s 15th anniversary are available for $15 apiece.

 

The registration deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Monday, September 10, 2018.

 

If you have questions about registration, please contact the Carolinas WPA President, Collie Fulford.

Carolinas WPA Meeting in the Middle 2018 CFP

Call for Proposals

Carolinas Writing Program Administrators

Meeting in the Middle

Friday, February 16, 2018

10:00 AM – 4:30 PM

(optional Thursday and Friday evening events)

UNC-Charlotte Center City Building
320 E. 9th Street, Charlotte, NC 28202

Theme: 2020 Vision: Building Connections and Coalitions across Campuses

Proposal deadline: Friday, February 2, 2018

Carolinas Writing Program Administrators is accepting proposals for its Twelfth Annual Spring Conference, Meeting in the Middle.

Connections, collaborations, coalitions. Effecting change—whether in working conditions or website resources—requires sustained and supported efforts of groups of people who share common goals, values, and vision. It helps if they also share disciplinary identity and language. In their chapter in the recently published collection Surviving Sexism in Academia: Strategies for Feminist Leadership, compositionists Jennifer Heinert and Cassandra Phillips describe the characteristics of effective coalitions: “A coalition has common goals, works purposely toward them, and shares credit and responsibility for the work. Creating a coalition begins with identifying, including, and supporting colleagues who share values, concerns, and goals. On the surface, this may seem like an easy task, but it involves establishing regular communication and developing trust over time” (“From Feminized to Feminist Labor”).

This year’s Meeting in the Middle is designed to give writing program administrators and faculty time and space to find the people who share their values, concerns, and goals. Acknowledging that the work in front of us, whether teaching, research, or activism, is more than one individual person, program, or school often has time or resources to tackle well, we encourage you to find partners to share the load. We are, as has been said, better together.

We invite proposals for brief presentations that might address the following:

 

  • Successful coalitions. Already have partners? What kinds of things have you accomplished as a team? And what can others learn from your experience?
  • Help wanted. Have a research, curricular, or programmatic project that could use a few more heads or hands? Describe the project and the ways others can help.

 

You are entirely welcome to attend the Meeting in the Middle without presenting, but those who declare what they are working on in advance will be listed on the formal agenda, which may help with self-advocating for travel funding.

Your proposals also help us plan appropriate interest groups and design workshop activities around your goals.

We welcome creative interpretation of the theme and goals. This forum is appropriate for work that would benefit from feedback and focused workshop time. Carolinas WPA welcomes individual and team projects at any stage of development and from people working in any teaching or administrative positions related to writing in the Carolinas.

 

Conference Format

A featured talk on strategies for cross-institutional collaboration led by Carolinas WPA member Jessie Moore will be followed by small breakout interest groups and writing activities. Those presenting should prepare for 15-20 minutes per person to discuss their work-in-progress and seek feedback from those with shared interests.

 

Proposals

Each proposal should be 250 – 500 words including the following:

  • Names and contact information (email, phone, home institution) for each person associated with your proposal
  • A presentation title
  • A description of the pertinent topic
  • Your specific goals for presenting at MinM

Submit it via email to Collie Fulford (cfulfor1@nccu.edu) and Paula Patch (ppatch@elon.edu) by 12:00 midnight Friday, February 2, 2018, using the subject line “MinM Proposal yourlastname.”

Questions or Comments? – Contact Paula Patch at ppatch@elon.edu.

 

Registration

The registration price of $40.00 includes lunch and the opportunity to bring a guest for free. Carpooling encouraged. Recommended: Add $6.00 per car to prepay parking.

  • The registration deadline is Friday, February 9, 2018.
  • When you “Bring a Friend for Free,” you must register your friend when you register yourself.

Registration opens soon on the Carolinas WPA website.

 

Parking

UNC-Charlotte Center City charges Carolinas WPA $6 for each event parking pass. Passholders have access to a lot very close to the conference building. If you prepay for a parking pass, we will email guidelines for printing your pass the week of the conference. If you choose not to prepay, you will need to find an alternate parking location.

 

Hotels

Map of hotels near the conference

Registration now open for Carolinas WPA’s 2017 Fall Conference at Wildacres

Registration is now open for the 2017 Fall Conference of the Carolinas Writing Program Administrators. More information on the conference is available below and in the conference’s call for proposals. Please visit this page to register.

Photo of the view from the Wildacres Retreat Center
The view from the Wildacres Retreat Center

14th Annual Fall Carolinas Writing Program Administrators Conference

Communities and Contact Zones: Doing Justice

September 18-20, 2017 | Wildacres Retreat, Little Switzerland, NC (Directions) | $200 (includes 2 nights lodging and 5 meals)

  • Proposal deadline: Friday, August 25, 2017
  • Registration deadline: Monday, September 11, 2017