Denise Treviño
Assistant Editor
Faculty Senate passed a resolution calling for university support of a co-taught interdisciplinary course application and discussed applications for the Writing Fellows program at their second meeting of the semester on Sept. 3.
In a unanimous vote, senators approved that the application for co-taught interdisciplinary course design be forwarded for approval by the Provost.
As outlined in the application, the design aims to “create powerful learning experiences that emphasize integrative learning, critical thinking, openness to new perspectives, collaboration and creative problem solving.”
Joseph Simpson, faculty senate president, said The Office of the Provost expressed support of the move to create co-taught, interdisciplinary courses, but wanted to make sure faculty had a chance to voice their opinion.
Simpson said the platform for co-teaching is new for the university and with the proposed guidelines in place there is a more structured way to fairly compensate faculty for the shared workload.
If approved, faculty can expect for co-taught courses to count toward their full teaching load.
Faculty who wish to apply for permission to teach a co-taught interdisciplinary course as early as Fall 2022 must submit applications to their chair by Oct. 1. Applications must be approved by the chair and dean of each participating faculty member.
Senators also received information on the application process for the Writing Fellows program, a collaboration co-sponsored by The Writing Center and the Writing Across the Curriculum program, to prepare selected undergraduate students to serve as peer writing tutors.
“I think the more we can do to help increase good student writing and provide student mentorship is super important,” Simpson said in an interview Sept. 15.
The program gives students the opportunity to share their writing skills with other students and to work collaboratively with faculty in their field of study.
“The Fellows also carry the ethos and perspective of being a student, which is an added element to writing instruction that instructors can’t replicate,” wrote Dr. Marcos Del Hierro, assistant professor of English and director of Writing Across the Curriculum, in an email. “Although many of us (instructors) are passionate about teaching, we can’t escape the fact that we haven’t been students for a while, and for some of us, a really long time.”
Selected students must be in good standing at the university and have at least two more semesters at the university.
After completing The Writing Center’s training program, students will go on to work one-on-one with students in the writing center and provide writing workshops.
Writing fellows are paid $11.50 an hour and must be able to work 15-19 hours a week.
Eligible courses must be writing-intentional and faculty must submit recommendations for a student writing fellow. The Writing Center will provide support to faculty in writing fellow recruitment if needed.
Faculty are also required to complete a writing-intentional course design workshop.
Although the priority deadline has passed, a final application deadline has not yet been set.
The program hopes to have students selected and begin training as early as October. For now, students must be nominated by their instructor before applying.
“Writing, research and data analysis are some of the most important skills you can learn as a student, universally for whatever degree you’re getting, ” Simpson said. “Being a good writer is going to make you a powerful job applicant, a powerful professional; it’s going to make you very marketable.”
