Search

This article, titled "From the Editors: Gratitude, Greetings, and Gatherings," discusses the role of the editorial board in the WPA: Writing Program Administration journal. The editors express their gratitude to previous members of the board and welcome new members who bring diverse perspectives. The article also highlights various articles in the journal, including ones on training WPAs in second-language writing issues, implementing directed self-placement for writing courses, and challenging assumptions about monolingualism in writing centers. Additionally, the article includes book reviews and encourages library patrons to engage in conversations and knowledge-sharing through social media initiatives. [Extracted from the article]

The national CWPA has made impressive strides to advance mentoring opportunities for its membership, yet, as surveys of the membership have indicated, there are still notable gaps in these opportunities. Drawing on our experiences as founders (Meg and Marsha Lee) and leaders (all four of us) of the Carolinas WPA affiliate (established in 2003), we explore the critical role that regional WPA affiliates have to play in addressing mentoring gaps. We suggest that affiliates can enable broad individual and institutional mentoring work within a geographic region, can empower members by allowing for frequent communication and face-to-face contact, and can provide needed opportunities for multidirectional, non-hierarchical mentoring relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces interview-based data in order to complicate our disciplinary narratives about early-career graduate students as identified primarily by the remediation of their teaching. Instead, we explore the place of disability in the lives of five MA/MFA graduate student teaching assistants (GTAs) teaching first-year writing to argue for more attention to accessibility in teacher preparation programs. We seek to begin conversations about redesigning our physical and pedagogical spaces and practices in service to a "transformative culture of access," defined by its goal of "questioning] and rethinking] the very construct of allow [ance]" (Brewer, Selfe, and Yergeau 153-54). We conclude by arguing for more attention to a flexible, adaptive administrative design for GTA preparation that takes into account principles of universal design to ensure that we strive to address the needs of all GTAs and contingent faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]