The most direct way to improve academic life for everyone on campus is to support faculty writing.
Many academics, if not most, struggle with their writing. There’s no reason to treat that struggle like a shameful secret or to mystify the writing process.
Writing-stalled faculty members tend to cope with their frustrations in ways that end up being ineffective, or even destructive. They get unnecessarily embroiled in departmental politics. Or they create a flurry of research-related projects that won’t meet tenure-and-promotion criteria no matter how creatively framed.
It doesn’t take a hefty budget or a bloated bureaucracy to create and sustain a campus culture that supports faculty writing. It takes books, workshops, confidential consultations, and, most important, writing groups. All of those things can be offered via a faculty writing program. Here are some guiding principles for creating such a program:
- It should be run by faculty, for faculty. A writing-support program needs to be kept separate from any sort of administratively imposed training, and from any implication of being remedial. It’s not about ferreting out lazy or weak writers. It’s about learning and using effective techniques to overcome the particular writing barriers that all academics face.
- It should offer writing workshops. They can be brief, interdisciplinary, technique-oriented sessions (lasting one to two hours each) on topics like “Semester Planning” or “Dealing with Stalled Projects.”
- If should facilitate faculty writing groups. Not every writer needs or benefits from a writing group but they’re crucial for those who do. Writing groups meet regularly and are run by their members. In writing groups, the focus is on process not content.
Continue reading: “Aiding the Writing-Stalled Professor,” by Joli Jensen
Thanks for reading The Quick Tip, a free newsletter from The Chronicle. Twice a week, we’ll send you fast advice for your job and your academic life.
Suggestions for what you’d like to see here? Other thoughts? Please email Denise K. Magner, a senior editor who compiles this newsletter, at denise.magner@chronicle.com.
