We began Appalachian's WAC Program in 2008 in University College, with Georgia Rhoades as half-time director and Sherry Alusow Hart as the first WAC consultant at one-quarter time. Erin Zimmerman, now WPA at American University Beirut, was our first graduate student RA. Rhoades invited Chris Anson to campus to conduct the first R & C/WID faculty workshops to introduce WAC and proposed a vertical writing curriculum to the Gen Ed Task Force. The new Gen Ed reforms called for all disciplines to create WID (or third-year) and capstone writing courses to meet the requirements of the vertical curriculum. In fall 2009, an interdisciplinary WAC Committee reviewed course proposals and recommended actions to the Gen Ed Council, as they do today.
The structure of the new WAC Program instituted in fall 2009 and still existing called for these personnel:
- A half-time WAC director
- Five 1/4 time WAC consultants, one to be assessment director
- A graduate student RA
- A program assistant (shared with Gen Ed)
Beginning that year, we also began the practice of inviting four or five faculty from the disciplines as WID consultants. These faculty advise the program and share their assignments and challenges with us, presenting this information to WAI, our community college conference, each spring.
The original WAC consultants were all NTT faculty in R & C, released for one class each semester according to an agreement between University College and R & C. In more recent practice, some of these consultants, still all R & C veterans, are assigned to WAC as part of their contracts in UC or work solely for WAC. If you have questions about our program structure, please email Georgia at rhoadesgd@appstate.edu.