News: WPA-GO Newsletter - Highlights of 2020-1 and Upcoming Initiatives
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The Writing Program Association - Graduate Organization Newsletter
Looking back at last year’s WPA-GO initiatives...
Laura Hardin Marshall, Chair
Kathleen Lyons, Vice Chair
As WPA-GO embarks on a new academic year, we want to briefly update you on the work from 2020-2021. We also want to thank you, our wonderful members, whose ongoing involvement and commitment make these projects so successful!
Without further ado, please read on for details on last year’s projects as well as teasers for upcoming projects from WPA-GO.
Until next time,
Laura and Kathleen
From the (then) Vice Chair
Before moving into her role as this year’s Chair of WPA-GO, Laura Hardin Marshall served as Vice Chair. In this role, Laura instituted pathways for agency in our graduate-student led organization by streamlining our listserv and developing our own website. During a year of structural change for WPA-GO, Laura prioritized clear communication with our membership and looks forward to continuing (and advancing) that work as Chair.
Inclusion Advisory Committee
During 2020-2021, WPA-GO restructured our bylaws to add the Inclusion Advisory Committee as a collaborative force in our organization. The IAC is made up of three subcommittees dedicated to Accessibility, Diversity, and Outreach. Under the title of Inclusion Advisory Committee, our three subcommittees collaborate to facilitate active inclusion in our organization and broader discipline.
Thank you to our Inclusion Advisory Committee Chair, Amilia Evans, for organizing our members as we continue to address inclusivity in our working conditions, WPA practices, and access concerns.
Accessibility Subcommittee
In an effort to keep graduate students connected, and support each other during the pandemic, the Accessibility Subcommittee supported WPA-GO’s digital networks through Discord and our new website. Both projects are new to WPA-GO, which meant it was especially important for us to make accessibility a priority in our communication design.
Thanks to our members Desiree Thorpe, AJ Odasso, Nicole Clawson, Kat Gray, and Priyanka Ganguly for their support in creating and facilitating our access-centered Discord site. Additionally, thank you to our now co-chairs Turnip Van Dyke and Kathleen Lyons for drafting the website’s accessibility statement and ongoing maintenance.
Both Discord and the website remain key projects for the accessibility committee this year as we bolster digital access in our organization.
Diversity Subcommittee
As part of WPA-GO’s restructuring, the Diversity Subcommittee was essential in drafting, giving feedback, and revising our bylaws. This committee serves as a critical link between subcommittees in our Inclusion Advisory Committee as they provide feedback with attention to diversity, highlight research by underrepresented and nondominant communities, and create opportunities for graduate students to learn and share anti-racist practices and pedagogies.
We are grateful to last year’s chair, Stacy Wittstock, and the committee members, Gina Atkins and Kat Gray, for their forward-looking creativity in establishing goals and practices for this committee.
In the coming year, the Diversity Subcommittee is creating an annotated bibliography of underrepresented and nondominant scholarship.
Outreach Subcommittee
In an effort toward active inclusion, our Outreach Subcommittee is a point of contact for graduate students interested in writing program administration and writing studies broadly. Over the past year, outreach has focused on supporting graduate students with academic conferencing. The Outreach Subcommittee compiled an ongoing list of conferences in our field. The Rhet/Comp/Writing Studies/Tech Comm Conferences list is a crowdsourced document designed to notify and encourage graduate students to propose conference presentations. To complement this list, the committee also produced a Conferencing 101 packet to help graduate students find, propose, fund, and attend conferences.
We appreciate the work of Claire Jackson, Amilia Evans, and Kathryn Van Zanen in putting these resources together.
In the upcoming months, the Outreach Subcommittee will be working in collaboration with Digital Presence and Accessibility to produce our first scholarship series on YouTube.
Digital Presence Committee
Last year, the Digital Presence Committee kept us connected and updated on all things WPA-GO. The committee generated content and engagement by consistently posting to our various social platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube). To bring our content together, Digital Presence created a linktree account so that all relevant WPA-GO content could be easily accessed in one place.
Thank you to our Digital Presence Committee members for keeping us updated, informed, and fostering a sense of community for our members.
The outgoing Digital Presence Committee Chairs, Megan Von Bergen and Amanda Pratt, would like to extend a thank you to the 2020-2021 committee members: Jonathan Adams, Maggie Fernandes, Roberto Leon, and Nicole E Rothenay. With your help, we were able to highlight important current work in writing program scholarship on our various socials, during a tumultuous year.
Building on their work from last year, the Digital Presence Committee is
managing an ongoing YouTube project to share graduate students’ antiracist
scholarship.
Mentoring Committee
The mentoring committee connects graduate students across institutions with peers and faculty interested in WPA work. This year the committee facilitated a virtual “Breakfast Buddies” event at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. As our most popular event, Breakfast Buddies facilitates conversations about writing program administration across all levels of experience.
Thank you, Mentoring Committee members, for keeping us connected.
Last year’s mentoring initiatives were led by Jennifer Burke Reifman and Tricia Rizza, and supported by Allison Dziuba, Amanda Pickett, and Lupe Remigio Ortega.
In the upcoming year, the Mentoring Committee is organizing an
Antiracism Reading Group. More information to come!
Interested in Joining one of these WPA-GO Committees?
We encourage you to fill out our Fall 2021 Programming Interest Form or email us at wpa...@gmail.com. We are always accepting new committee members!
You can also learn more about WPA-GO and our initiatives on our website.
A Special Thank You to Our Past Chair, Gabbi Kelenyi
Finally, to our Past Chair, Gabbi Kelenyi: WPA-GO appreciates you! Gabbi led our organization with grace and confidence as we revised our bylaws and responded to the CWPA boycott. As Chair, Gabbi kept graduate students at the forefront of our mission. We are a better organization and we are better scholars because of your leadership. Thank you, Gabbi!
We look forward to another great year!
Warmest regards,