The college of education will foster a supportive and professional culture of academic writing with faculty and doctoral students after receiving the idea from a doctoral student.
In the spring of 2017, Interim Writing Center Director Rick Fisher, Endowed Chair of Literacy Education Cynthia Brock and Professor Victoria Gillis collaborated on the Academic Writing Fellows project. They wish to make quality academic writing at the university a priority a practice that positively encourages staff to put active effort into high-quality potential publications.
“One of the important aspects of our jobs as professors is to engage in research writing,” Brock said. “One of the things that we can do to facilitate that work is to work in collaboration with our colleagues in the college of education to support one another in that endeavor.”
This year, there was a combination of 10 fellowship members, both faculty and doctoral students, that were given the opportunity to receive mentorship from expert writers across the nation. This allowed for the collective improvement of the research work and presentation of writing being done by those involved in the program.
Members of the Academic Writing Fellows are given the chance to meet weekly in writing groups to initiate a dialogue and receive feedback on their work, as well as participate in two writing retreats over the course of the year that offer workshops and other resources that serve to improve their quality of writing.
“Universities, for good or ill, live and die by reputation,” Gillis said. “Part of that reputation rests squarely on faculty productivity including … papers published and the journal’s reputation where these articles are published matters in terms of reputation of both the scholar and the university … it is in the best interest of UW to support faculty in this aspect of their careers.”
The fellowship has already accomplished a lot since 2017: one book proposal acceptance; one co-edited book; two academic book chapters; four successful grant proposals that have resulted in nearly $3 million of funding; 15 national and international conference proposals and presentations; 12 articles that are currently in the process of being reviewed, revised or accepted.
By introducing a program like this, the college of education is paving the way for faculty and doctoral students to work together in productive ways that in turn allow the progression of scholarship and achievement for those in the department and the university as a whole.
“For me, the goal would be to try to find ways to help make this kind of support available in a sustainable way within the college of education as well as in other colleges that might see the value of this being implemented among their faculty and doc students,” Fisher said.
The Academic Writing Fellows initiative will be ending in June of this year, but there is hope that the program will continue. Funding for this program is provided by the efforts from the college of education’s Dean Reutzel and is required for this program to continue to bring in top-tier resources and academic engagement with research writing.
“Funding matters because part of what we want to do is connect our UW professors and doctoral students with the top scholars of the nation in their respective areas,” Brock said. “[It] creates relationships and communities where, oftentimes, this will lead to other opportunities.”
The Academic Writing Fellows serve to bring people together to focus on a common goal of increasing high-quality scholarship and writing that can effectively impact not only the people within their classes but those in their field of expertise and the state of Wyoming.
