• Economic Development/Workforce Demand
  

  This faculty line search request accommodates a replacement line. We are losing a long-term Composition Instructor, Maria Warren, due to retirement. The Department of English and World Languages requests an instructor position to replace Warren's teaching load and departmental service obligations. In losing Warren, the department will lose the sole faculty member who teaches Technical Writing courses; as a result, we were not able to offer any fall sections of ENC 3240 Technical Writing. This course is a requirement for some majors.
  
  We request, through this position line, a faculty hire in the field of Composition who will be able to assist with the reform of General Education Composition courses and carry forward in-process initiatives that directly impact student learning and first-to-second year student retention. General Education impacts the entire university, and our efforts to build a stronger quality writing program not only targets student learning at the university but also reaches students' professional workforce production. Composition is a subject area that has high impact across all disciplines; therefore, this new faculty line benefits the entire university culture - not only the Department of English and World Languages.
  
  While we seek and need a PhD level candidate, as an instructor line hire, we realize we will receive MA level candidates as well. In the field of Composition, it will be difficult to hire a PhD at the rank of Instructor. However, an additional instructor line would be greatly appreciated due to the overwhelming number of contingent faculty members in the Composition Program. The current primary workforce in the Composition Program is adjunct faculty with MA degree levels in Literature areas of speciality. The training of a literature emphasis significantly differs from the writing theory and pedagogy focus that a Composition and Rhetoric specialist receives. We need a person who is trained in the best practices of the field of Composition and Rhetoric so we can continue improving writing instruction in General Studies and across campus.

• Florida Board of Governors Areas of Strategic Emphasis      
  

  UWF has a real need and demand for additional writing instruction for students as they navigate across their four-year experience. Writing instruction for students solely situated at their first year of college is only a starting point for what students need in terms of written communication preparation for college and for the workforce. The new hire that we request will explicitly contribute to UWF's Strategic Plan, impacting in particular Strategic Directions 1) "Enhanced Student Access, Learning, Progression, and Development, 2) Distinctive Teaching, Scholarship, Research, and Professional Contributions , and 4) Sustainable Institutional Excellence.
  
  The most recently articulated Quality Enhancement Plan agenda set for UWF’s 2015 SACSCOC reaffirmation is devoted to the topic "Communication for Professional Success: Using high-impact practices to improve students’ written and oral communication." As stated from the Office of the Provost, the aim of this QEP initiative is to help improve students' "verbal and written communication skills and thus their professional preparation for employment, advanced education, and/or public service." The teaching of Technical and Professional Writing courses, ENC 3240 and 3250, are integral to the training of students for a 21st century workforce. The department has a newly designed course, ENC 2990 Digital Writing, that also prepares students for writing in the workplace and in public genres beyond the academy. An instructor hire with a teaching speciality in Composition would be able to teach and assess these courses, helping the department salvage and sustain this important curricula.
  
  UWF has significant structural work to complete before the university's 2015 QEP critical goal can be met. Currently, the only specific Composition courses students take are during the first year of academic instruction, a requirement completed through ENC 1101 and 1102. We need additional ENC courses, which inevitably requires the presence of additional qualified and more permanent-standing faculty.

• Accreditation Requirements
  

  Currently, over 90% of General Studies Composition courses are taught by contingent faculty members, adjuncts and/or graduate teaching assistants. The Department of English and World Languages and UWF only have one tenure-track faculty member with a PhD speciality in Composition and Rhetoric. Comparable universities at the national and regional level have more than one tenure-track Composition specialist. The fact that all Composition programmatic work falls on one faculty member strongly hinders UWF's ability to progress with distinctive teaching in composition and limits students' access to and learning of the most up-to-date high impact writing and communication practices.
  
  The SACSCOC Commission Guidelines on Faculty Credentials states that faculty teaching general education courses at the undergraduate level must hold a doctorate or master’s degree in the "teaching discipline or master’s degree with a concentration in the teaching discipline (a minimum of 18 graduate semester hours in the teaching discipline)". With the retirement of Warren, only one Composition faculty member meets this accreditation standard and holds the degree in the "teaching discipline" of Composition and Rhetoric, which leaves over 96% of General Studies Composition faculty as holding master degree's in English with a Literature or Creative Writing teaching discipline emphasis - a degree training and practice quite different from the teaching of Composition, Technical and Professional Writing, Digital Writing, and other areas of writing instruction across the disciplines other than the humanities.

• Community/Visibility
  

  When the current Director of Composition arrived to UWF in fall semester 2012, only a few undergraduate, ENC designated courses existed on the course registration: the two first-year Composition courses (ENC 1101 and 1102), Technical Writing (ENC 3240), and Professional Writing (ENC 3250). The latter two courses are solely taught as online sections and are required by select majors.
  
  In order to meet the goal of "reforming writing culture," a stated charge announced at the Annual College of Arts and Sciences Fall 2012 faculty and staff meeting, the Composition Director prioritized the design of new ENC courses. Such a programmatic move would, for one, increase visibility of writing intensive instruction across campus, and secondly, such a move would enhance the overall writing culture by offering students a more sustained and reiterative experience with learning writing and communication. Over the past four semesters, ENC courses have definitely increased in visibility, but we now face the challenge of who will teach these new courses. We are at a standstill for designing or revising any additional courses due to a lack of highly qualified faculty. In addition to enhancing students' access to distinctive teaching in General Studies Composition courses, with a new instructor line hire, we hope to revamp Technical and Professional Writing as revised, face-to-face offered courses in addition to online sections.

Over the last two years, the Composition and Rhetoric Program has worked to increase evidence of a quality writing program through the implementation of continuous assessment improvement, new course design, and ongoing professional development for current Composition faculty members. The Composition Committee has revised and is revising the course outcomes for both first-year Composition courses and has designed a more standard curriculum for ENC 1102 College Composition II with the plan to implement a similar plan for ENC 1101 this fall 2013 semester. The latter programmatic changes are in direct response to university and state-level concerns about students receiving a more consistent experience in General Education courses across the SUS in Florida.

Written communication skills mark a significant pressure point at all higher learning institutions. UWF currently serves over 2000 students in the First-Year Composition curriculum. As stated above, the Director of Composition, across the past three semesters, has created three additional ENC courses, currently operating under the experimental 990 model. As these new courses become official CCR listed classes, the Composition Program remains in dire need of additional permanent faculty members who will be able to assist in the teaching and assessment of these writing courses. Before we are able to create any additional courses or make subsequent revisions to the writing curriculum at UWF, necessitated by Board of Governors and QEP initiatives, we must have an additional hire with the degree specialty in the teaching discipline of Composition and Rhetoric.

The Composition Program consists of, on average, 25+ contingent faculty members who require on-going professional development and training in the teaching and assessment of writing. A replacement instructor faculty line would enable the workload of this critical faculty training to be shared among the one tenure-track faculty member and two remaining instructors. In addition, the Composition Program and the Department of English and World Languages just approved a revised TA Training Program that includes an extensive mentoring and practicum program for graduate teaching assistants who seek to teach their own sections of ENC 1101 and 1102. At the practicum stage, graduate TAs work in an experienced teacher's ENC 1101 or 1102 classroom for a semester. We aim to place graduate students with the most experienced and highest quality teacher mentors. Currently, we rely on three faculty members to assist in this important graduate student training.

The newly appointed instructor will hold a degree in the discipline of Composition and Rhetoric. Workload assignment will include teaching General Studies writing courses, teaching Technical and Professional Writing courses, teaching the following newly designed courses: Introduction to STEM Writing, Writing Studio, and Digital Writing. In addition to teaching responsibilities, the new hire will assist with curricular development and revision and with on-going assessment initiatives by serving as a member of the Composition Committee.

Currently, General Studies Composition instruction is taught predominantly by adjunct faculty. The Composition Program currently has one tenure-track, PhD faculty member and a small number of full-time instructors who teach in the General Studies Composition curriculum. We are losing one long-term, full-time instructor at the end of this academic year due to her retirement.

* Does not include non-degree specializations (indicated with a † above)