Writing Program Administration at Small Liberal Arts Colleges

WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES presents an empirical study of the writing programs at one hundred small, private liberal arts colleges. Jill M. Gladstein and Dara Rossman Regaignon provide detailed information about a type of writing program not often highlighted in the scholarly record and offer a model for such national, multi-institutional research. Utilizing the mixed methods approach of grounded theory, Gladstein and Regaignon weave together survey, interview, and focus group data, site document analysis, and institutional history. They describe the writing programs at small colleges today as being dominated by writing across the curriculum-based approaches to writing instruction and the writing centers as emphasizing peer tutoring, and hence the development of undergraduate students as leaders and scholars. For small colleges, the movement toward vertical writing curricula, professionalized leadership positions, and innovative writing assessments occurs when institutions deepen or reaffirm their commitment to writing across the curriculum. In addition, WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES offers a heuristic for understanding and comparing writing programs within and across institutions.