title
A Report for the Vice President of Instruction
Executive Summary | A Writing Initiative | Building on Strengths | A Coherent Plan | Recommendations | Acknowledgments | Appendices


I'm not afraid that the book will be controversial,
I'm afraid it will not be controversial.                 
                                                               Flannery O'Connor
                                                           Georgia writer
Executive summary
pdf version of this report

In late fall of 2006, the once and future Vice-Presidents for Instruction, Del Dunn and Jere Morehead, charged our Task Force. They asked us to identify barriers to writing on the UGA campus and suggest ways to get more undergraduates writing. We divided our investigation into

four areas: new programs,support needs, faculty development and funding, and research implications. Initially we worked in subcommittees, but then met as a whole for discussion and analysis. Our recommendations build on existing recommendations from 2005 Undergraduate Education Task Force Report and fall into three categories:
  • Increase writing instruction for UGA students (five recommendations).
  • Provide the structure and support that writing instruction requires (six recommendations).
  • Improve faculty development programs and rewards for writing instruction (four recommendations).

A complete list of these recommendations is at the end of this report. The most expensive of these recommendations closely track the 2005 Undergraduate Education Task Force Report. Other recommendations are for small changes at a modest expense that will have a significant impact, such as a writing certificate program, awards for student writing, or a writing lab add-on for undergraduate courses.

In all, the recommendations constitute a request for a coherent writing initiative to affect every college on the campus. While such an initiative requires significant funding, ignoring students’ need for writing will have grave costs.

This request for a writing initiative comes from the faculty. It was a faculty member who approached the Vice President for Instruction to request the Task Force; it is faculty members who have asked for help with the teaching of writing or complained about the difficulty of using writing in their classes. As members of the Task Force, we have certainly drawn on staff and administrators for their expertise and advice, but it as teachers that we have made our recommendations: we want our students to write because they will learn more effectively.