GenAdmin: Theorizing WPA Identities

"GENADMIN: THEORIZING WPA IDENTITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY makes an important contribution to writing studies in general by showing how the identification of writing program administration as scholarly and creative (not merely administrative) invites new ways to think about and theorize composition's place in the field and in institutional structures. GENADMIN also contributes to WPA scholarship by opening a rich and textured discussion of a very specific moment in which WPA work becomes a focus for graduate studies in the field. . . . GENADMIN speaks with equal importance to junior and senior WPAs, to the people who train graduate students for WPA work, and to those who hire new WPAs." -Nancy C. DeJoy, Michigan State University | GENADMIN: THEORIZING WPA IDENTITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY examines identity formation in a generation of rhetoric and composition professionals who have had explicit preparation in scholarly dimensions of writing program work. GENADMIN disrupts histories and narratives that posit writing program administration as managerial, where the most one can hope for is to become a hero who successfully champions writing rather than a victim of an untenable job. The authors draw on composition and rhetorical theory, WPA experiences and scholarship, and contemporary philosophy to offer writing program administration as an epistemology and a discourse for change. GENADMIN repositions WPAs as agents and reclaims writing program administration as a positive professional commitment that looks toward, rather than simply stems from, current challenges in higher education. An Afterword by Jeanne Gunner, Joseph Harris, Dennis Lynch, and Martha Townsend continues the important conversation, setting the stage for future discussion of the issues raised in this groundbreaking account of a new generation of writing program administrators. | COLIN CHARLTON is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition and coordinator of developmental reading/writing at the University of Texas-Pan American. JONIKKA CHARLTON is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition and coordinator of first-year writing at the University of Texas-Pan American. TAREZ SAMRA GRABAN is Assistant Professor of English and coordinator of multilingual writing at Indiana University. KATHLEEN J. RYAN is Associate Professor of English and Director of Composition at the University of Montana. AMY FERDINANDT STOLLEY is Assistant Professor of English and Writing Program Director at Saint Xavier University.