Category: meeting in the middle

Carolinas WPA 2014 Meeting in the Middle

Carolinas WPA Annual Meeting in the Middle

Friday, February 14, 2014

10:00 AM – 4:30 PM

UNC Charlotte Center City Building, Room 905-906
320 E. 9th Street, Charlotte, NC 28202

http://centercity.uncc.edu/

Theme:  Working Conditions and Writing Instruction

 

A multitude of factors affect the professional achievements and satisfaction of those who teach writing. Funding is an obvious limitation faced by most, if not all, of those who administer or work in writing programs. Given that funding will, most likely, continue to fall short of what it should be, we would do well to pool our ideas and learn from each other as we consider how to make the best use of limited resources. This year’s Meeting in the Middle will provide a space to share ideas and discuss strategies for bettering working environments for teachers of writing.

As always, Carolinas WPA welcomes the participation of graduate students.

 

Featured Speaker and Conference Overview

We’re pleased that Dr. Nancy Penrose, a Carolinas WPA alumnus from North Carolina State University, has agreed to spend the morning with us. Penrose is the author of “Professional Identity in a Contingent-Labor Profession: Expertise, Autonomy, Community in Composition Teaching,” which appeared in WPA 35.2 (2012). She will share insights gleaned from a survey of writing instructors at NCSU and lead us in discussions about how to foster a sense of professional identity and community among teachers of writing.

 

The afternoon will be devoted to small group discussions in which participants will share information about working conditions at their programs and collaborate to identify strategies for improving those conditions.

 

Participation and Registration

 

Participation

Given this year’s focus on learning from one another, we ask that each participant provide responses to an online survey (click here) about working conditions by the registration deadline, Monday, February 3, 2014. Responses will be compiled to be shared at our meeting.

 

Registration Fee

$30.00 includes lunch and “break” food.

To increase Carolinas WPA visibility, we encourage you to” Bring a Friend for Free,”  but you must register your friend when you register yourself.

* Click here to register.*

Registration Deadline—Monday, February 3, 2014

 

Learn more about Meeting in the Middle…

CFP: Meeting in the Middle (Proposals due February 8, 2013)

Carolinas WPA Meeting in the Middle

Friday, February 22, 2013

UNC Charlotte’s Center City Campus

Charlotte, NC

10:00am-4:30pm

 

Theme:  Advocacy in Composition Studies

 

Many writing courses are integrating advocacy issues that are important to students, teachers, and their local communities. For instance, some instructors create assignments that ask students to create or develop Facebook pages dedicated to a particular issue, or to create an “advocacy website” that has an impact on viewers or readers so to promote the action advocated. As program administrators and writing instructors, we may consider questions like:

  • Who decides or selects the focus for advocacy?
  • What happens if students select an advocacy approach that may be considered “bad” or unethical?
  • How should advocacy work be evaluated or assessed?
  • How do you coordinate your needs as a teacher, the needs of the students as evolving writers, and the needs of the “clients” with which you and your students work in a class that incorporates advocacy?

 

Request for Proposals

The Carolinas WPA encourages active participation at its conference.  To broaden our theme of advocacy, we are requesting brief proposals that consider the questions above, as well as proposals about activities/projects that can help us advocate for writing instruction and writing programs. In other words, we are looking for proposals that promote and publicize what we do as writing teachers and program directors.

 

If you would like to participate in this conference, please submit a proposal that addresses any area of writing and advocacy.  Please submit a 100-word abstract by Friday, February 8, 2013 to Anthony T. Atkins [atkinsa@uncw.edu].  Be sure to include names of presenters, institutions, and email addresses for participants. As always Carolinas WPA encourages graduate student participation.

 

Conference Outline

We aim for the conference to be interactive.  The morning and afternoon sessions will feature speakers. The afternoon session will also feature round table discussions about advocating college-level writing and the duties of writing program directors. A detailed conference outline is forthcoming and will be posted on the website before the conference begins.

 

As always there will be plenty of time to meet informally with colleagues.

 

 

Registration Fee

$25.00 includes lunch and “break” food.

To increase Carolinas WPA visibility:  Bring a Friend for Free, but you must register your friend when you register yourself.

 

Click Here to Register

 

 

Proposal Deadline—Friday, February 8, 2013

 

Registration Deadline—Friday, February 15, 2013

 

Sixth Annual Meeting in the Middle

Friday, February 24, 2012

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

http://centercity.uncc.edu/

Rooms 506 & 806

 

10:00 -11:30     Teaching Writing: Professional Development in First-Year Writing Instruction – Roundtable Discussion

11:30 – 1:00      Lunch: Executive Board meeting and Logo Contest (Vote for submitted logo designs for Carolinas WPA!)

1:00 – 2:00       What Are We Reading? Shared Discussions*

2:00 – 3:00       Collaborative Grant** & Proposal Writing:

* If you have a favorite article on rubric design, forward the information to Lynne Rhodes at lynner@usca.edu so that she can make copies available to the group ahead of discussions.

**  Bring ideas and / or drafts of proposals for CCC, SAMLA, WPA, etc.

** If you come with a team from your institution, time can also be spent on writing  with your team for internal or competitive grant to follow up on Wildacres 2012.

 

Online registration opens Friday, February 3rd. Register for $25 and bring a colleague for free.

Meeting in the Middle Conference Agenda

February 18th, Cone Center (Rooms 208 and 210), University of North Carolina – Charlotte

9:00: Coffee

9:30am: Peter Felten (Elon University)

11:00am: Poster Presentation Set-up

11:30am: In-house Luncheon

12:30pm: Poster Visitation and informal research discussions

Megan Hodgson & Tony Atkins (UNC Wilmington)
“Plagiarism 101: UNC System Schools and How we Enforce Plagiarism Policies”

Diana Ashe (UNC Wilmington)
“Real-Time Grading: A Tool for Engaging Millennial Writers.”

Jessie Moore and Paula Patch (Elon University)
“First-Year Digital Literacies: Teaching and Researching Technology-Enriched Innovations”

Nancy Barendse (Charleston Southern University)
“Using a Computer to Assess Revision”

2:00pm: Laura Cruz (Western Carolina University)

3:30pm: Closing remarks

Register Now

It’s not too late to join us!  If you would like to be a part of our One-day event and bring a friend with you for free, fill out the registration form (click here) and send it directly to Nancy Barendse (nbarends@csuniv.edu) no later than Monday, February 14.

*** Download More Information ***

*** Download the Registration Form ***

*** Get Directions, Print a Campus Map, Find a Hotel ***

Peter Felten and Laura Cruz to speak at Meeting in the Middle

Carolinas WPA is pleased to announce that Peter Felten (Elon University) and Laura Cruz (Western Carolina University) will be featured speakers at the 2011 Meeting in the Middle.

Peter Felten is assistant provost, director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, and associate professor of history, at Elon University. He has published widely on engaged learning and the scholarship of teaching, and he is on the editorial boards of the International Journal for Academic Development and the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Peter is president (2010-2011) of the POD Network, an international association for teaching and learning centers in higher education, and he will co-present a plenary address (“Is SoTL good for faculty professional development?”) at the 2011 conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. His recent research focuses on how students learn and develop in college, and on the possibilities of student-faculty partnerships in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Laura Cruz is an Associate Professor of History and Director of the Coulter Faculty Commons at Western Carolina University. In addition to her work in history, she has research interests/publications in the Boyer model of scholarship, the integration of technology and pedagogy, institutional subcultures, and graduate student development. She continues to serve as the editor-in-chief of MountainRise, one of the longest-standing SoTL journals.

The full Meeting in the Middle schedule will be posted soon.

Meeting in the Middle: Directions, Hotels, and Parking

We hope to see you at Meeting in the Middle on February 18th. Here are some resources to help you with your travel plans:

The parking garage adjacent to Cone Center has a Visitor Parking Deck has a visitor parking deck; the fee is $1/hr ($8 max/day).

Meeting in the Middle: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

WHO:           Carolinas WPA (CWPA)

WHAT:         Meeting in the Middle (one-day conference)

WHERE:       UNC Charlotte (Cone Center: Rooms 208 and 210) – Get Directions

WHEN:         18 February 2011 from 9:30am-4:00pm

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

“The scholarship of teaching and learning involves systematic study of teaching and/or learning and the public sharing and review of such work through presentations or publications.”

-Kathleen McKinney, Cross Endowed Chair in the Scholarship in Teaching and Learning, Illinois State University

The afternoon session of the CWPA “Meeting in the Middle,” our annual one-day event in Charlotte, will provide a venue for sharing our work on the scholarship of teaching and learning with our colleagues from North and South Carolina. We invite proposals for poster presentation that contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning. Posters might, for instance focus on classroom-based research projects that you have done or that you plan to do, or they might focus on how research, whether classroom-based or not, can inform and enrich teaching practices.  Graduate students and faculty from all ranks are welcome to join us.

Please bring your own easel or way or displaying your poster.

Conference Description

Morning Session (9:30am): Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Panel A
The morning session will feature specialists in the scholarship of teaching and learning from North and/or South Carolina universities.

Poster Set-up (11:00-11:30pm)

In-house Luncheon (11:30am-12:30pm)

Afternoon Session I (12:30pm)

Poster Presentations
Posters accepted will be displayed in the afternoon. Authors and attendees will be encouraged to roam the room and chat/discuss with presenters about their specific research projects on teaching and learning.

Afternoon Session II (2:00pm)

Panel B
The afternoon session will feature specialists in the scholarship of teaching and learning from North and/or South Carolina universities.

Closing Session (3:30 pm)

To increase CWPA visibility:  Bring a Friend for Free.  However, you must register your friend when you register. Registration is only $25.

We know we are cutting our deadlines close, so if you intend to participate (submit a poster), please send an email directly to Tony Atkins (atkinsa@uncw.edu) indicating the title of your poster, a brief explanation of the topic, the names of those who will be presenting the poster with you, and the name of your institution/s.  Please send your proposal by Friday, February 4.